期刊名称：Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
印刷版ISSN：0027-8424
电子版ISSN：1091-6490
出版年度：2012
卷号：109
期号：30
页码：12111-12116
DOI：10.1073/pnas.1204533109
语种：English
出版社：The National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
摘要：HIV-1 envelope glycoprotein is the primary target for HIV-1-specific antibodies. The native HIV-1 envelope spike on the virion surface is a trimer, but trimeric gp140 and monomeric gp120 currently are believed to induce comparable immune responses. Indeed, most studies on the immunogenicity of HIV-1 envelope oligomers have revealed only marginal improvement over monomers. We report here that suitably prepared envelope trimers have nearly all the antigenic properties expected for native viral spikes. These stable, rigorously homogenous trimers have antigenic properties markedly different from those of monomeric gp120s derived from the same sequences, and they induce potent neutralizing antibody responses for a cross-clade set of tier 1 and tier 2 viruses with titers substantially higher than those elicited by the corresponding gp120 monomers. These results, which demonstrate that there are relevant immunologic differences between monomers and high-quality envelope trimers, have important implications for HIV-1 vaccine development.
