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Reply to: HIV-1 Env antibodies: are we in a bind or going blind?

Nature Medicine volume 18, pages 347–348 (2012)Cite this article

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Hope replies:

In his letter1, John Moore raises a number of interesting points relating to my initial 'Bedside to Bench' piece describing the potential ability of broadly binding or non-neutralizing antibodies (non-NAb) to function as a vaccine to prevent human immunodeficiency virus 1 (HIV-1) acquisition2. Focusing primarily on the results of the Thai Vaccine Trial RV144, Moore1 defends the focused effort to develop a vaccine based on neutralizing antibodies (NAbs). Although he correctly points out that the statistical significance of the protection in the RV144 trial was highly dependent on how the analysis of the data was done, vaccine-induced non-NAbs clearly dissipated in the first year after vaccination, and therefore, even if non-NAbs were key in providing any protection from infection during this initial year, they could not be expected to continue to provide any protection after that. Future studies will determine the nature of the mucosal responses generated by the vaccination used in the RV144 trial and how these responses might provide protection from HIV-1 infection. Nevertheless, the RV144 trial has clearly stimulated discussion and opened the door for new ideas about how an HIV vaccine can potentially provide protection from infection.

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References

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  1. Department of Cell and Molecular Biology, Northwestern University, Chicago, Illinois, USA

    Thomas J Hope

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Correspondence to Thomas J Hope.

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Hope, T. Reply to: HIV-1 Env antibodies: are we in a bind or going blind?. Nat Med 18, 347–348 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/nm.2688

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