Identification of amino acids in the V3 region of gp120 critical for virus neutralization by human HIV-1-specific antibodies.

The importance of the dependence on single amino acids in the V3 region of HIV-1 gp120 was evaluated for virus neutralization and antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity (ADCC). Synthetic overlapping 15-mer peptides and a set of omission peptides covering amino acids 301-317 were used. Sera from 29 HIV-1-infected individuals at different stages of disease were tested for neutralization, ADCC and specific IgG reactivity. Six HIV-1 neutralizing monoclonal antibodies (mAb) acted as controls. All mAb reacted with a region (amino acids 304-318) of gp120, previously shown to induce neutralizing antibodies. The amino acids essential for reactivity were identified to be within the sequence GPGR (amino acids 312-315). The importance of this region for occurrence of neutralizing antibodies in infected humans was investigated using the same set of peptides. Out of 29 individuals, 21 were found to have neutralizing antibodies in titres between 100 and 1000. Among the neutralization-positive sera, 17/21 (81%) reacted with amino acids 304-318, compared with only one of eight sera (13%) negative in neutralization. When any of the four amino acids G, P, G or R were deleted, the seroreactivity decreased considerably. The conserved sequence GPGR was therefore considered to be the most important for neutralization in this region in human sera as well. Thus, the conserved sequence GPGR in the V3 region of gp120 is critical for virus neutralization by human HIV-1-specific antibodies.