Scientists reveal promising new vaccine against HIV

MADRID, Nov. 26 (EUROPA PRESS) –

A new HIV vaccine candidate developed by the Scripps Research Institute (USA)) overcame the technical hurdles that prevented earlier vaccines and succeeded in stimulating a potent antibody reaction against HIV during animal testing.

The new strategy, described in an article in the journal Science Advances, is based on the HIV envelope protein, Env. This complex molecule that changes shape has been notoriously difficult to produce in vaccines so as to induce useful immunity against HIV. However, these scientists have found a simple method to stabilize Env proteins in the desired form, even for various strains of HIV.

Mounted on virus-like particles to mimic an entire virus, the stabilized Env proteins triggered antibody responses. robust anti-HIV in mice and rabbits. Candidate vaccines based on this strategy are now tested on monkeys. "We view this new approach as a general solution to the long-standing problems of HIV vaccine design," said lead researcher Jiang Zhu, an badociate professor in Scripps' Department of Structural Biology and Integrative Computing. Research. 19659004] Copies of Env study the surface of HIV. Its main function is to grab the host cells and penetrate them to trigger the infection. Since Env plays this crucial role in infection and is the most exposed viral structure to the immune system of an infected host, it is the main target of vaccination efforts. against HIV.

The idea was to inoculate people with all the Env proteins or their subunits to stimulate the production of antibodies that bind to Env, in the hope that these antibodies prevent HIV. infect host cells in future exposures to the virus.

Many researchers believe that an HIV vaccine can work if it presents the Env proteins to the immune system in a way that looks a lot like the Env form in a real virus before it. infects a cell, but submitting Env has been a big challenge.

] "This is the first time that an HIV candidate vaccine induces this desired type of antibody response in mice," Zhu said. Similarly, unprecedented results were obtained in rabbits, demonstrating that the nanoparticle-based approach is clearly superior to the use of isolated Env proteins: it produces a much stronger response and much faster .

Further tests are underway on 24 monkeys at the National Primate Center of the United States, sponsored by the National Institutes of Health in San Antonio, Texas.