Abstract
As pointed out in previous editorials, the development of an effective vaccine for the Human Immunodeficiency Virus capable of preventing infection, or even one capable of preventing the Acquired Immunodeficiency Disease Syndrome, has eluded investigators for the past 20 years. Now Reche and Keskin and their co-workers have provided evidence that an entirely new approach, based upon modern bioinformatics methods and skillful in vitro immunological experiments, may result in an effective way to prime the T cell immune response of normal individuals against conserved peptide epitopes.
Highlights
The report by Reche, Keskin and co-workers, entitled "Elicitation from virus-naïve individuals of cytotoxic T lymphocytes directed against conserved HIV-1 epitopes", gives one pause, in that in the words of the authors, it suggests that a "paradigm shift" is necessary to develop T cell vaccines capable of protecting uninfected individuals from developing AIDS, should they become infected with HIV-1
The investigators tackled the difficult problem of HLA I polymorphisms, which further complicates the development of a CTL epitope vaccine that would be broad enough to cover almost all of a diverse population of individuals
5-epitope combinations using only 25 of the 37 epitopes were identified that are important either for structural integrity and/or catalytic activity of POL (14), GAG (5), ENV (3), and NEF (3). To determine whether these epitopes would stimulate a measurable CD8+ T cell response from HIV-positive individuals, peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) from 47 subjects were activated in vitro for 18 hours with the 5 distinct peptide pools followed by assays for INFγ ELISPOTS
Summary
The investigators tackled the difficult problem of HLA I polymorphisms, which further complicates the development of a CTL epitope vaccine that would be broad enough to cover almost all of a diverse population of individuals. Reche and Keskin and their co-workers have provided evidence that an entirely new approach, based upon modern bioinformatics methods and skillful in vitro immunological experiments, may result in an effective way to prime the T cell immune response of normal individuals against conserved peptide epitopes.
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