New breakthroughs were made in the development of AIDS vaccines. According to a recent report by the Physicist Network, US scientists have discovered a class of glycan molecules at an important functional site in the HIV envelope protein that can be used as a specific neutralizing antibody "VRC26". Target to accelerate the development of AIDS vaccines.
Since the 1980s, attempts to develop HIV vaccines based on traditional vaccine design have failed. HIV is a variant virus that has tens of thousands of different strains, and traditional vaccines can only attack one strain and are therefore often ineffective against HIV.
In response to the ever-changing characteristics of HIV strains, scientists have tried to isolate antibodies from HIV-infected individuals, hoping to develop HIV vaccines for different strains. By analyzing the blood of HIV-infected individuals, scientists have identified a small number of widely neutralizing antibodies. Such antibodies can attack a common structure of multiple HIV viruses. The study also found that some widely neutralized antibodies can even block the infectivity of all HIV strains.
One of the most widely used neutralizing antibodies is the "VRC26" antibody extracted from the blood of a South African HIV-infected person named CAP256 a few years ago. This antibody binds tightly to the V2 region of the viral envelope protein. The virus is inactivated, and the V2 region is a relatively constant protein sequence possessed by most strains. However, the biggest challenge in developing vaccines using VRC26 antibodies is that some immune cell B cells contain similar binding sites to the V2 region, affecting the effectiveness of antibodies.
Dennis Burton, a professor of immunology at the Scripps Research Institute in the United States, and colleagues recently wrote in the journal Immunology that they analyzed the changes in B cells in the blood of CAP256 infected people and obtained major findings: V2 region The glycan molecule can assume the function of "anchor", encircle the B cells, and the VRC26 antibody will evolve with the B cells, thereby having more extensive neutralization. Therefore, the incorporation of glycan molecules into the target at the very beginning is of great significance for the development of effective HIV vaccines.
Burton said that they will prioritize antibodies against V2 region glycan molecules in vaccine development and conduct immunoassays.
Source: Technology Daily
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