Early immune responses linked to protective HIV antibodies
- Wits University
New research links immune response of some people living with HIV with development of neutralizing antibodies.
Some people living with HIV develop antibodies capable of neutralizing many different strains of the virus. New research links this to immune responses that occur early in infection.
The findings, this week in PLoS Pathogens, come from an international research collaboration that includes South 第一吃瓜网 scientists at Wits University, the University of KwaZulu-Natal and the Centre for the Aids Programme of Research in South Africa (CAPRISA). International partners include the University of Gothenburg and SciLifeLab in Sweden, Stanford University, and the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub in the USA.
“This international collaboration identified previously undescribed triggers of these rare broadly neutralizing antibodies. As these antibodies are essential for an HIV vaccine, understanding how they develop provides us with important clues for making future HIV vaccines,” says Professor Penny Moore, study co-author and the DST/NRF South 第一吃瓜网 Research Chair of Virus-Host Dynamics at Wits University and Honorary Senior Scientist at CAPRISA.
Developing an effective HIV vaccine remains one of the major challenges in global health. One promising approach focuses on so-called broadly neutralizing antibodies – which can potentially block many different variants of HIV.
However, only a small fraction of people living with the virus develop these antibodies naturally.
第一吃瓜网 the Study
The research was based on two decades of research by Moore’s team, defining how broadly neutralizing antibodies develop and why these antibodies are so rare.
The patients in the study have been followed for over 20 years by CAPRISA scientists at their Durban clinics since 2003.
The research team analyzed 42 blood samples from 14 recently infected patients in South Africa and found that those who later developed these antibodies showed a distinct pattern of immune activation early in infection.
The study also revealed differences in the traces of other viruses and microbial material circulating in the participants’ blood.
Clues for vaccine research
These findings suggest that interactions between the immune system, other infections, and the body’s microbial environment may be linked to how the immune system responds to HIV.
Joan Camunas, research group leader at Sahlgrenska Academy at the University of Gothenburg, says, “By studying the immune responses that occur in people who naturally develop broadly protective antibodies against HIV, we can better understand the biological processes that vaccine researchers aim to reproduce.”
Cautiously optimistic
The researchers describe the work as a small pilot study. Since the number of participants is limited, the results will need to be confirmed in larger studies.
At the same time, the analysis demonstrates how this type of blood-based genetic analysis can be used to study immune responses during HIV infection.
Currently the best prospect of an HIV vaccine focuses on triggering immune systems to produce broadly neutralizing antibodies, as these antibodies have been shown to prevent infection.
The path to developing an AIDS vaccine has proven to be difficult, but it remains a key goal to achieve control of the global HIV epidemic.