Discriminating between protective and enhancing HIV antibodies.
Most attempts to produce a vaccine against HIV-1 infection are utilizing envelope protein components. Hypothetically such vaccine candidates could stimulate production of antibodies that enhance HIV-1 infection via the macrophage route of entry and, consequently, cannot be detected in the conventional neutralization assay. To study this hypothesis we report an assay designed to evaluate the protective/enhancing activity of serum from seropositive immunized or infected individuals. Highly purified activated FcR-bearing monocytes-macrophages were infected with HIV-1 in the presence of the sera, then washed and cocultured with activated peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) from a normal donor. Productive viral infection, as evaluated by p24 antigen semiquantitative assay in the culture supernatants, allow evaluation of protective/enhancing activity of the sera. The data clearly show that protective rather than enhancing activity is present in the serum of env protein-immunized individuals.
Bernard
J
J
Institut Jean-Godinot, Reims, France.
Reveil
B
B
Najman
I
I
Liautaud-Roger
F
F
Fouchard
M
M
Picard
O
O
Cattan
A
A
Mabondzo
A
A
Laverne
S
S
Gallo
R C
RC
D000163:Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome / Q000276:immunology*; D002478:Cells, Cultured; D015683:Gene Products, gag / Q000276:immunology*; D015483:HIV Antibodies / Q000276:immunology*; D015488:HIV Antigens / Q000276:immunology*; D016655:HIV Core Protein p24; D006679:HIV Seropositivity / Q000276:immunology; D015497:HIV-1 / Q000276:immunology*; D006801:Humans; D007700:Kinetics; D007963:Leukocytes, Mononuclear / Q000276:immunology / Q000382:microbiology; D008264:Macrophages / Q000382:microbiology; D009000:Monocytes / Q000382:microbiology; D011897:Random Allocation; D014758:Viral Core Proteins / Q000276:immunology*
D015683:Gene Products, gag; D015483:HIV Antibodies; D015488:HIV Antigens; D016655:HIV Core Protein p24; D014758:Viral Core Proteins