title: Immunogenicity and specificity of the candidate multi-epitope-vaccines against HIV-1.
abstract: The failure of some candidate HIV-1 vaccines may result from inducing very weak neutralization activity against representative primary viral isolates. Based on our hypothesis that epitope-vaccine may be a new strategy to induce high levels of neutralizing antibodies against HIV-1, we designed two candidate multi-epitope-vaccines, EP1 [C-G-(ELDKWA-GPGRAFY)2-K] and EP2 (CG-GPGRAFY-G-ELDKWA-G-RILAVERYLKD), containing three neutralizing epitopes (GPGRAFY, ELDKWA and RILAVERYLKD) on HIV-1 envelope protein, and expected them to induce epitope-specific antibodies of predefined epitope-specificity. The two peptides were conjugated to carrier protein bovine serum albumin (BSA) and used for immunization of rabbits. Proteins were purified from the rabbit sera induced by both candidate multi-epitope-vaccines (EP1-BSA and EP2-BSA) through affinity chromatography with epitope-peptide-conjugated sepharose-column, and identified as antibodies in silver-staining and immunoblotting. These antibodies were demonstrated to recognize three neutralizing epitopes on peptides and the recombinant gp41 in ELISA-assay and immunoblotting. These results indicated that both candidate multi-epitope-vaccines could induce high levels of antibodies of predefined epitope-specificity which recognized a few of neutralizing epitopes on peptides and protein, providing experimental evidence for the new strategy to develop an effective neutralizing-antibody-based multi-epitope-vaccine against HIV-1.
authors.affiliation: Research Center for Medical Science and Department of Biology, Tsinghua University, Ministry of Education, Beijing, PR China.
authors.forename: Y
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Lu
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Ding
authors.forename: Y H
authors.initials: YH
authors.lastname: Chen
mesh_terms: D016915:AIDS Vaccines / Q000276:immunology*; D000163:Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome / Q000276:immunology / Q000517:prevention & control*; D000818:Animals; D000918:Antibody Specificity / Q000276:immunology; D004797:Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay; D000939:Epitopes / Q000276:immunology*; D015483:HIV Antibodies / Q000276:immunology; D015699:HIV Envelope Protein gp120 / Q000276:immunology; D015700:HIV Envelope Protein gp41 / Q000276:immunology; D015497:HIV-1 / Q000276:immunology*; D006801:Humans; D015151:Immunoblotting; D011817:Rabbits
chemical_list: D016915:AIDS Vaccines; D000939:Epitopes; D015483:HIV Antibodies; D015699:HIV Envelope Protein gp120; D015700:HIV Envelope Protein gp41