Neutralization and enhancement of in vitro and in vivo HIV and simian immunodeficiency virus infections

Abstract

Over the past year significant progress has been made in mapping those regions of the HIV-1 envelope glycoproteins involved in virus neutralization and virus enhancement. These functional, antigenic domains of the gp160 are illustrated in Fig. 1. The role of neutralization in vaccine development is still unresolved, although high-titer antibody to the V3 loop of HIV-1 appears to be correlated with the ability to prevent HIV-1 infection by the homologous strain in chimpanzees. Therefore, the mechanism of type-specific neutralization of HIV appears to be clearly defined. The problem of group-specific neutralization of HIV-1 is still a mystery. Nevertheless, the finding that secondary structure is important for the generation of group-specific neutralizing mAbs and that carbohydrate is an important determinant for group-specific neutralization suggests that non-linear determinants are important. Answers to the question of group-specific neutralization should be available in the next few years. The role of HIV-1-enhancing antibodies in pathogenesis is not well understood. Nevertheless, the ability of patient serum to only enhance the patient's own isolate and not neutralize that isolate suggests that enhancing antibodies are important. Furthermore, the findings that enhancing antibody titers increase in SIV infection and peak immediately prior to the death of the animal suggests that such antibodies may play a role in SIV pathogenesis. With the identification and domain mapping of enhancing hu-mAbs, it should be possible to evaluate directly the role of enhancing domains in HIV and SIV pathogenesis by challenging animals in the presence of pure enhancing antibody. Only when these experiments are performed will it be possible to evaluate what role, if any, enhancing antibodies play in HIV pathogenesis. The above questions, when answered, are likely to provide important insights into lentivirus pathogenesis and help researchers to produce a safe and effective anti-HIV vaccine.