Antibodies from HIV-positive and AIDS patients bind to an HIV envelope multivalent vaccine

A major problem impeding development of an effective HIV vaccine is the rapid antigenic variability that is characteristic of several envelope glycoprotein epitopes. Frequent mutations alter the composition of the mast immunogenic regions of the envelope glycoprotein. We have prepared a synthetic immunogen representing the evolution of the major hypervariable epitopes on the envelope glycoprotein (gp120) of HIV-1. Five synthetic constructs, representing each-of the HIV-1 gp120 hypervariable epitopes were tested for recognition by antibodies from patients infected with HIV-1 from different geographic regions worldwide. An HIV-I human:plasma panel provided a representation of the antibodies recognizing subtype-specific epitope sequences prevalent at different parts of the world. The vaccine construct was recognized by antibodies from HIV-l-positive individuals infected with subtypes A, B, C, D, E, and F. Antibodies in pooled HIV-I patient sera from San Francisco also recognized all five constructs. This complex immunogen was recognized by antibodies in sera from individual HIV-l-positive and AIDS patients from Puerto Rico and Canada, with a strong binding to the complete vaccine and the V3 component. Altogether, our results demonstrate that antibodies from seropositive patients infected with different HIV-I clades recognize and bind to the HIV hypervariable epitope construct vaccine preparation and its individual components.