Synthetic AIDS vaccine targets HIV coreceptors.

2003 FEB 12 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- "A class of synthetic peptide immunogens for the cell surface HIV receptor complex has been developed to elicit antibodies that block viral entry by inhibiting gp120-CD4 interaction," according to research from the United States.

"These peptides extend our HIV receptor-directed approach from passive immunotherapy with mAb B4 (Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 96 (1999) 10367) to active immunization by a synthetic peptide-based vaccine," explained C.Y. Wang and coworkers, United Biomedical Inc.

"A peptide site from CD4 was identified as a B cell epitope capable of mimicking a susceptible site on the HIV receptor complex, and then rendered immunogenic," the researchers said. "An effective target antigenic site (B cell epitope) for the cell surface HIV receptor complex was selected by epitope mapping from among diverse CD4 and chemokine receptor peptides."

"It is a cyclized sequence modified from the CDR2-like domain of CD4 (AA 39-66), that was predicted to produce steric hindrance of the discontinuous recognition site of mAb B4. The immunogenicity of the targeted epitope was augmented by tandem combination with promiscuous T helper cell epitopes (Th)," according to the report.

"The antibody response to this class of immunogens attained ...