DH511.2_K3, an engineered hybrid antibody L.D. WILLIAMS ET AL., SCI. IMMUNOL. 2, EAAL2200 (2017)Thanks to its diversity and tendency to mutate, HIV is a notoriously problematic vaccine target. Researchers have found hope in the existence of rare, naturally occurring antibodies that can neutralize multiple HIV strains, called broadly neutralizing antibodies. In a study published in Science Immunology today (January 27), a group of researchers based at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, described a unique lineage of broadly neutralizing antibodies from a chronically infected donor’s B cells and plasma that can bind a hard-to-access part of the virus.
“It is a breakthrough because most of us thought that we wouldn’t be able to develop these antibodies in the first place,” said Nelson Michael, who directs the HIV research program at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in Silver Spring, Maryland, and was not involved in the work. Although there are other broadly neutralizing antibodies that bind the same region of the HIV envelope protein, Michael said none of them bind as close to the virus’s plasma membrane—an ideal position to block crucial steps of the viral life cycle—as those described in the present study. The virus’s plasma membrane resembles parts of human cells and, to protect itself from autoimmunity, the body usually deletes B cells that makes antibodies against itself through a ...
