Commentary Cellscience Reviews Vol 4 No 2 ISSN 1742-8130

Broadly neutralizing antibodies are produced in some asymptomatic AIDS patients: renewed hope for vaccine development?

The ability to elicit antibody-mediated humoral immunity is likely to be an important attribute of any successful AIDS vaccine. However, the vaccines tested to date do not elicit antibodies that are both potent and broadly neutralizing - qualities critical for an effective vaccine. Moreover, only a small handful of monoclonal antibodies have yet been described with such attributes raising questions about the very possibility of eliciting such a response among the majority of any vaccinated population. In a recent article in Nature Medicine, Li and colleagues demonstrate the presence of highly potent antibodies capable of neutralizing a wide variety of viral strains in the serum of some long term asymptomatic (slow progressor) patients and determined the binding region on the viral envelope spikes targeted by these antibodies. These observations offer renewed hope that an effective vaccine for inducing humoral immunity can be designed.

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