Important note: Information in this article was accurate in November 2001. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.AIDSWEEKLY Plus; Monday, November 19 & 26, 2001
Michael Greer, Senior Medical Writer
NewsRx -- Researchers in New York City have presented evidence in favor of the controversial use of simian/human immunodeficiency virus (SHIV)-based models for HIV vaccine testing.
Susan E. Malenbaum and colleagues at the Rockefeller University's Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center conducted a study comparing the human and macaque immune responses to HIV and SHIV strains with divergent envelope protein features.
Both human and macaque responses were similarly affected by changes in envelope glycoproteins, they said.
Malenbaum and coworkers evaluated the efficacy of antibodies in neutralizing isogenic clade A and B viruses with or without the V3 loop glycan. Both HIV and SHIV-specific antibodies were more effective against glycan-deficient virus strains, according to their report.
Viruses that lacked the V3 loop glycan allowed antibodies greater access to the conserved CD4BS and CD4i epitopes on the crucial gp120 glycoprotein. This may explain the superior neutralization seen against glycan-deficient virus, the researchers noted, and suggests that antibodies targeting these epitopes are common in both humans and macaques.
Serum samples from macaques exposed to glycan-deficient virus strains had higher levels of broadly neutralizing antibodies (Evidence for similar recognition of the conserved neutralization epitopes of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 envelope gp120 in humans and macaques, J Virol 2001 Oct;75(19):9287-96.
"Collectively, our data add legitimacy to the use of SHIV-macaque models for testing the efficacy of HIV-1 Env-based immunogens," Malenbaum and coauthors concluded.
The corresponding author for this report is Cecilia Cheng-Mayer, Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center, 455 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016, USA. E-mail: cmayer@adarc.org.
A search at www.NewsRx.net using the term "AIDS and HIV vaccine" returned 121 articles in 17 specialized reports.
Key points reported in this study include:
This article was prepared by AIDS Weekly editors from staff and other reports.
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