New insight on potent HIV antibody could improve vaccine design

Early mutation in neutralizing antibody gives it flexibility to adapt to virus’s changes In the quest to develop an effective HIV vaccine, researchers have focused attention on identifying and targeting the region of the virus’s outer envelope where a lineage of antibodies are able to dock and neutralize the virus. But true to form with HIV, these broadly neutralizing antibodies, or bnAbs, are highly complex and arise under an intricate series of events that have been difficult to trace backward to their origins and recreate. A new observation, led by researchers at the Duke Human Vaccine Institute, highlights the importance of previously unstudied mutations that arises early in bnAbs, giving the antibodies the flexibility to adapt to changes in the virus’s outer envelope protein structure. This flexibility enables the antibody to dock on diverse strains of the virus and more potently neutralize them. The finding was published this month in the journal Nature...