Epitope-based vaccine design yields fusion peptide-directed antibodies that neutralize diverse strains of HIV-1.
Xu, K., Acharya, P., Kong, R., Cheng, C., Chuang, G.Y., Liu, K., Louder, M.K., O'Dell, S., Rawi, R., Sastry, M., Shen, C.H., Zhang, B., Zhou, T., Asokan, M., Bailer, R.T., Chambers, M., Chen, X., Choi, C.W., Dandey, V.P., Doria-Rose, N.A., Druz, A., Eng, E.T., Farney, S.K., Foulds, K.E., Geng, H., Georgiev, I.S., Gorman, J., Hill, K.R., Jafari, A.J., Kwon, Y.D., Lai, Y.T., Lemmin, T., McKee, K., Ohr, T.Y., Ou, L., Peng, D., Rowshan, A.P., Sheng, Z., Todd, J.P., Tsybovsky, Y., Viox, E.G., Wang, Y., Wei, H., Yang, Y., Zhou, A.F., Chen, R., Yang, L., Scorpio, D.G., McDermott, A.B., Shapiro, L., Carragher, B., Potter, C.S., Mascola, J.R., Kwong, P.D.(2018) Nat Med 24: 857-867
- PubMed: 29867235 
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-018-0042-6
- Primary Citation of Related Structures:  
5TKJ, 5TKK, 6CDE, 6CDI, 6CDM, 6CDO, 6CDP - PubMed Abstract: 
A central goal of HIV-1 vaccine research is the elicitation of antibodies capable of neutralizing diverse primary isolates of HIV-1. Here we show that focusing the immune response to exposed N-terminal residues of the fusion peptide, a critical component of the viral entry machinery and the epitope of antibodies elicited by HIV-1 infection, through immunization with fusion peptide-coupled carriers and prefusion stabilized envelope trimers, induces cross-clade neutralizing responses. In mice, these immunogens elicited monoclonal antibodies capable of neutralizing up to 31% of a cross-clade panel of 208 HIV-1 strains. Crystal and cryoelectron microscopy structures of these antibodies revealed fusion peptide conformational diversity as a molecular explanation for the cross-clade neutralization. Immunization of guinea pigs and rhesus macaques induced similarly broad fusion peptide-directed neutralizing responses, suggesting translatability. The N terminus of the HIV-1 fusion peptide is thus a promising target of vaccine efforts aimed at eliciting broadly neutralizing antibodies.
Organizational Affiliation: 
Vaccine Research Center, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA.