Determinants of HIV-1 broadly neutralizing antibody induction. Nature Medicine
Rusert, Kouyos et al. performed a systematic investigation of parameters that steer broadly neutralizing antibodies (bnAb) induction in HIV-1 infection by analyzing the plasma neutralization activity of 4’484 individuals enrolled in the Swiss HIV Cohort Study, or the Zurich Primary HIV Infection study. They found that antigen load, duration of viral exposure and viral diversity independently promote the evolution of broad neutralization responses. Interestingly, black participants showed significantly higher rates of bnAb induction than white participants. There was strong virus subtype dependency with higher frequencies of CD4-binding-site bnAbs in infection with subtype B viruses and higher frequencies of V2-glycan-specific bnAbs in infection with non–subtype B viruses.
In conclusion, the conducted population-wide survey allowed for the first time to put the increasing number of parameters considered as drivers of neutralization breadth into perspective, explore their interdependencies and define novel parameters. These will be key findings for the future development of rational bnAb-based HIV-1 vaccine design.
Additional comment Dominique Braun (MD) and Huldrych Günthard (MD)
Multiple reasons for celebration come along with this publication: the current press release summarizes the 1000th publication originating from the SHCS.
We would like to thank all participants in the SHCS, the physicians, study nurses, interdisciplinary researchers, the data managers, the data center, the administration and all the many funders.
The SHCS is true teamwork. We toast now on the first thousand publications and hope that there will be another thousand soon! It is a privilege to be part of this exciting long-term endeavor!
Links to the press release of this publication in English and Deutsch on the webpage of the University of Zurich