Elispot Assay May Hasten Development Of African Vaccine.(Brief Article)

2001 NOV 7 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- by Michael Greer, senior medical writer - Enzyme-linked immunospot (Elispot) analysis of immune responses to HIV is aiding the development of a vaccine targeting viral strains common in Africa, researchers report.

"The most severe human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) epidemic is occurring in southern Africa," according to Dr. Max Essex and colleagues at the Harvard School of Public Health and Harvard Medical School in Boston, the National Health Laboratory/National Blood Transfusion Center and the Botswana-Harvard Partnership for HIV Research and Education in Gaborone, Botswana, and Los Alamos National Laboratory in Los Alamos, New Mexico. "It is caused by HIV-1 subtype C (HIV-1C)."

Results from Elispot assays provided information that may enable the creation of a vaccine tailored to viral strains predominant in Botswana and surrounding regions, Essex and coauthors said.

The researchers used Elispot testing to analyze cytotoxic T-lymphocyte (CTL) responses from HIV positive blood donors. "The definition of optimal and dominant epitopes across the HIV-1C genome that are targeted by CTL is critical for vaccine design," they noted.

Synthetic peptides with overlap between the HIV proteins Gag, Nef, Rev, and Tat were used with Elispot assays to determine these epitopes. Consensus data on HIV genetic diversity and sequences were also used to further map the HIV-1C genome, according to the report.