Vaccine Research Center, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2011 Jan 26;6(1):e16074. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0016074.
The HIV-1 envelope glycoproteins (Env) gp120 and gp41 mediate entry and are the targets for neutralizing antibodies. Within gp41, a continuous epitope defined by the broadly neutralizing antibody 2F5, is one of the few conserved sites accessible to antibodies on the functional HIV Env spike. Recently, as an initial attempt at structure-guided design, we transplanted the 2F5 epitope onto several non-HIV acceptor scaffold proteins that we termed epitope scaffolds (ES). As immunogens, these ES proteins elicited antibodies with exquisite binding specificity matching that of the 2F5 antibody. These novel 2F5 epitope scaffolds presented us with the opportunity to test heterologous prime:boost immunization strategies to selectively boost antibody responses against the engrafted gp41 2F5 epitope. Such strategies might be employed to target conserved but poorly immunogenic sites on the HIV-1 Env, and, more generally, other structurally defined pathogen targets. Here, we assessed ES prime:boosting by measuring epitope specific serum antibody titers by ELISA and B cell responses by ELISpot analysis using both free 2F5 peptide and an unrelated ES protein as probes. We found that the heterologous ES prime:boosting immunization regimen elicits cross-reactive humoral responses to the structurally constrained 2F5 epitope target, and that incorporating a promiscuous T cell helper epitope in the immunogens resulted in higher antibody titers against the 2F5 graft, but did not result in virus neutralization. Interestingly, two epitope scaffolds (ES1 and ES2), which did not elicit a detectable 2F5 epitope-specific response on their own, boosted such responses when primed with the ES5. Together, these results indicate that heterologous ES prime:boost immunization regimens effectively focus the humoral immune response on the structurally defined and immunogen-conserved HIV-1 2F5 epitope.
HIV-1 包膜糖蛋白(Env)gp120 和 gp41 介导进入,是中和抗体的靶标。在 gp41 中,广泛中和抗体 2F5 定义的连续表位是功能性 HIV Env 刺突上可被抗体接近的少数几个保守位点之一。最近,作为结构指导设计的初步尝试,我们将 2F5 表位移植到几种我们称为表位支架(ES)的非 HIV 受体支架蛋白上。作为免疫原,这些 ES 蛋白引起的抗体具有与 2F5 抗体精确匹配的结合特异性。这些新型 2F5 表位支架为我们提供了测试异源初级:增强免疫策略的机会,以选择性增强针对植入的 gp41 2F5 表位的抗体反应。这些策略可用于针对 HIV-1 Env 上保守但免疫原性差的位点,更普遍地针对其他结构定义的病原体靶点。在这里,我们通过 ELISA 测量表位特异性血清抗体滴度和 ELISpot 分析测量 B 细胞反应来评估 ES 初级:增强免疫,使用游离 2F5 肽和不相关的 ES 蛋白作为探针。我们发现,异源 ES 初级:增强免疫方案会引起针对结构受限的 2F5 表位靶标的交叉反应性体液反应,并且在免疫原中包含混杂的 T 细胞辅助表位会导致针对 2F5 嫁接物的抗体滴度更高,但不会导致病毒中和。有趣的是,两种表位支架(ES1 和 ES2)单独使用时不会引起可检测的 2F5 表位特异性反应,而在与 ES5 初级时则会增强这种反应。总之,这些结果表明,异源 ES 初级:增强免疫方案可有效将体液免疫反应集中在结构定义和免疫原保守的 HIV-1 2F5 表位上。