Novel techniques for the study of HIV-specific neutralizing antibodies

摘要

State-of-the-art techniques have enabled researchers to explore the phenomenon of natural antibody-mediated HIV neutralization for the first time in patients with broad serum neutralizing activity to HIV. The intricate antibody activity in patients exhibiting slow HIV disease progression is not well understood. To gain a better understanding of such antibody responses, scientists at The Rockefeller University (NY, USA) replicated a little over 500 isolated antibodies from envelope-binding memory B cells. These memory B cells were taken from the blood serum of six slow progressing HIV individuals - believed to represent 10-20% of HIV patients - with broadly neutralizing antibodies and low to intermediate viral loads.