Abstract:
To develop an effective HIV-1 vaccine eliciting neutralizing antibodies (nAbs),
one or more conserved neutralizing epitopes broadly exposed on the surface of HIV-1
are required. Although several neutralizing monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) are
available at present, most of them have been developed in HIV-1 subtype B which
may be not reactive to other subtypes, including HIV-1 CRF01_AE. Additionally,
neutralizing resistant strains may be developed in the future. Therefore, epitopes
which are conserved and exposed on the surface of each primary isolate should be
defined.
The conserved neutralizing B cell epitopes of HIV-1 CRF01_AE were
determined by competitive neutralization. The conserved neutralizing epitopes were
predicted by amino acid alignment of Env glycoproteins from 43 HIV-1 CRF01_AE
primary isolates. Then, the linear peptides corresponding epitopes located on
various regions of Env were designed and synthesized. Their antigenic determinants
were investigated and showed that epitopes on conserved regions were poor whereas
epitopes on variable regions were both moderate and potent. Conversely, some
epitopes located on gp41 were moderate. They were potent in interacting with some
HIV-1 sero-positive sera. To define conserved neutralizing epitopes, the peptides,
C1E1/C1E2, C2E and C3E1/C3E2, corresponding C1, C2 and C3 were incubated
with pool sera of HIV-1 slow progressors to absorb neutralizing antibodies (nAbs).
The peptides C1E1/C1E2 and C2E could inhibit nAbs to HIV-1 CRF01_AE primary
isolates whereas peptides C3E1/C3E2 could not. This demonstrated that epitopes
(amino acids 93-112 of C1 and 218-239 of C2) were conserved neutralizing
epitopes. However, only peptide C2E could induce immune response in BALB/c
mice. Then, mAb C2EB5 was produced. This mAb could neutralize HIV-1 subtypes
A, B, C, D and CRF01_AE with IC50 32.00+6.92, 52.05+2.24, 24.94+21.11, 19.78
and 38.04+0.45 μg/ml (mean+SD), respectively. The neutralizing activities of mAb
C2EB5 and available mAbs, 4E10 and 447-52D, and sCD4 were compared by
neutralizing 3 HIV-1 TCLA strains (HIV-1IIIB, HIV-1MN and HIV-1NPO3).
Monoclonal antibody C2EB5 could neutralize all of them with IC50 76.22+12.22
μg/ml whereas sCD4 showed the best neutralizing activity against these 3 HIV-1
isolates with IC50 6.29+5.14 μg/ml. Additionally, it was demonstrated that the
epitope of mAb C2EB5 was broadly exposed on the surfaces of various intact, native
viruses, except for HIV-1 subtype B. This is the first report determining conserved
neutralizing epitopes on HIV-1 CRF01_AE and determining neutralizing activity of
mAb against linear epitope 218-239.