The human body is atypically defending itself against HIV infection – it produces antibodies that bind the virus in many different places, according to scientists from the US in the journal Nature. Their discovery has the potential to contribute to the improvement of work on a vaccine against HIV and AIDS.
Our body produces antibodies in response to infections. Most of them are highly specific and only bind to a specific site of one antigen. Less specific polyreactive antibodies can bind to a variety of antigens.
Michael Nussenzweig and colleagues from Rockefeller University in New York showed that during HIV infection, our body produces antibodies that show both specific and polyreactive binding, which increases the strength of antibody binding to the virus.
Scientists tested as many as 134 different antibodies, all directed against a fragment of the HIV virus envelope, the so-called gp140 glycoprotein obtained from 6 patients. As many as three-quarters of the antibodies were found to be polyreactive – they bound with high affinity for gp140 and with less affinity for a wide variety of other sites on the virus surface. (PAP)