Antibody genes from patients induce broad antiviral activity.(Brief Article)

2002 AUG 28 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- by Michael Greer, senior medical writer - Antibody genes from HIV patients could form the basis for an effective HIV vaccine, researchers in the United States report.

"Although several human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) vaccine approaches have elicited meaningful antigen-specific T-cell responses in animal models, no single vaccine candidate has engendered antibodies that broadly neutralize primary isolates of HIV type 1 (HIV-1)," according to Anne D. Lewis and colleagues at the Columbus Children's Research Institute and Ohio State University in Columbus and Duke University in Durham, North Carolina.

Some HIV patients carry powerful antiviral antibodies, and genes from these patients can be used to replicate these antibodies in animals, Lewis and coauthors found.

The researchers hypothesized that broadly neutralizing monoclonal antibodies could provide the comprehensive antiviral activity lacking in current vaccine candidates. However, these antibodies are only seen in a small subset of HIV patients, and are much too rare to be converted into vaccines meant for widespread use, they said.

To get around this limitation, a single broadly neutralizing antibody gene was delivered to animals using a recombinant adeno-associated virus (rAAV) vector. After intramuscular inoculation with the gene for human ...