Systems serology for evaluation of HIV vaccine trials

Summary The scale and scope of the global epidemic, coupled to challenges with traditional vaccine development approaches, point toward a need for novel methodologies for HIV vaccine research. While the development of vaccines able to induce broadly neutralizing antibodies remains the ultimate goal, to date, vaccines continue to fail to induce these rare humoral immune responses. Conversely, growing evidence across vaccine platforms in both non‐human primates and humans points to a role for polyclonal vaccine‐induced antibody responses in protection from infection. These candidate vaccines, despite employing disparate viral vectors and immunization strategies, consistently identify a role for functional or non‐traditional antibody activities as correlates of immunity. However, the precise mechanism(s) of action of these “binding” antibodies, their specific characteristics, and their ability to be selectively induced and/or potentiated to result in complete protection merits parallel investigation to neutralizing antibody‐based vaccine design approaches. Ultimately, while neutralizing and functional antibody‐based vaccine strategies need not be mutually exclusive, defining the specific characteristics of “protective” functional antibodies may provide a target immune profile to potentially induce more robust immunity against HIV. Specifically, one approach to guide the development of functional antibody‐based vaccine strategies, termed “systems serology”...
Source: Immunological Reviews - Category: Allergy & Immunology Authors: Tags: INVITED REVIEW Source Type: research