Strategies for a multi-stage neutralizing antibody-based HIV vaccine

• Published in: Current opinion in immunology Vol. 53; pp. 143 - 151
• Main Authors: Andrabi, Raiees, Bhiman, Jinal N, Burton, Dennis R
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England Elsevier Ltd 01.08.2018
• Subjects: AIDS Vaccines - immunology; Animals; Antibodies, Neutralizing - metabolism; Antibody Affinity; B-Lymphocytes - immunology; Disease Models, Animal; HIV Antibodies - metabolism; HIV Infections - immunology; HIV-1 - immunology; Humans; Lymphocyte Activation; Vaccination
• ISSN: 0952-7915; 1879-0372
• DOI: 10.1016/j.coi.2018.04.025

•A neutralizing antibody-based vaccine is needed to curb the global HIV pandemic.•Current vaccine approaches target unique features of bnAb precursors.•Technological advances to assess Ab responses have aided iterative vaccine design.•Multi-stage and multi-component immunization strategies are essential. A critical property of a prophylactic HIV vaccine is likely to be its ability to elicit broadly neutralizing antibodies (bnAbs). BnAbs typically have multiple unusual features and are generated in a fraction of HIV-infected individuals through complex pathways. Current vaccine design approaches seek to trigger rare B cell precursors and then steer affinity maturation toward bnAbs in a multi-stage multi-component immunization approach. These vaccine design strategies have been facilitated by molecular descriptions of bnAb interactions with stabilized HIV trimers, the use of an array of sophisticated approaches for immunogen design, the development of novel animal models for immunogen evaluation and advanced technologies to interrogate antibody responses. In this review, we will discuss leading HIV bnAb vaccine immunogens, immunization strategies and future improvements.