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Potent Intratype Neutralizing Activity Distinguishes Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 2 (HIV-2) from HIV-1

Author

Summary, in English

HIV-2 has a lower pathogenicity and transmission rate than HIV-1. Neutralizing antibodies could be contributing to these observations. Here we explored side by side potency and breadth of intratype and intertype neutralizing activity (NAc) in plasma of 20 HIV-1, 20 HIV-2 and 11 dually HIV-1/2 (HIV-D) seropositive individuals from Guinea-Bissau, West Africa. Panels of primary isolates, five HIV-1 and five HIV-2, were tested in a plaque reduction assay using U87.CD4-CCR5 cells as targets. Intratype NAc in HIV-2 plasma was found to be considerably more potent, and also broader, than intratype NAc in HIV-1 plasma. This indicates that HIV-2 infected individuals display potent type-specific neutralizing antibodies, whereas such a strong type-specific antibodies are absent in HIV-1 infection. Furthermore, potency of intratype NAc was positively associated with viral load of HIV-1, but not HIV-2, suggesting that NAc in HIV-1 infection is more antigen stimulation-dependent than in HIV-2 infection where plasma viral loads typically are at least tenfold lower than in HIV-1 infection. Intertype NAc of both HIV-1 and HIV-2 infected was instead of low potency. HIV-D subjects had NAc to HIV-2 with similar high potency as singly HIV-2 infected individuals, whereas neutralization of HIV-1 remained poor, indicating that the difference in NAc between HIV-1 and HIV-2 infections depends on the virus itself. We suggest that immunogenicity and/or antigenicity, meaning the neutralization phenotype, of HIV-2 is distinct from HIV-1, and that HIV-2 may display structures that favour triggering of potent neutralizing antibody responses.

Publishing year

2012

Language

English

Pages

961-971

Publication/Series

Journal of Virology

Volume

86

Issue

2

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

American Society for Microbiology

Topic

  • Microbiology in the medical area

Status

Published

Research group

  • Infectious Diseases Research Unit

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 1098-5514