HIV Specific Humoral Immune Response in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

• Main Authors: Bongertz V, Costa CI, Guimarães ML, Soares-da-Costa MFG, Grinsztejn B, Bastos FI, Pilotto JH, João Filho EC, Loureiro R, Chequer P, Telles PR, Galvão-Castro B, Morgado MG
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Instituto Oswaldo Cruz, Ministério da Saúde 1998-01-01
• Series: Memórias do Instituto Oswaldo Cruz.
• Subjects: HIV-1; antibody specificity; neutralization; genotypes
• Online Access: http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0074-02761998000300022

Efforts to characterize HIV-1 polymorphism and anti-HIV immune response are being made in areas where anti-HIV/AIDS vaccines are to be employed. Anti-HIV-1 humoral immune response is being studied in infected individuals resident in Rio de Janeiro, in distinct cohorts involving recent seroconvertors, pregnant women or intravenous drug users (IDU). Comparative analyses of specificity of antibody response towards epitopes important for anti-HIV-1 immune response indicate quantitative differences between cohorts, with an exceptionally strong response in IDUs and weakest response in pregnant women. However, a comparative analysis between pregnant women cohorts from Rio de Janeiro and Rio Grande do Sul indicated an even lower response (with exception of the anti-V3-C clade peptide recognition) for the southern cohort. Studies analysing the immune function of the humoral response indicate a quite elevated occurrence of antibodies capable of neutralizing heterologous primary HIV-1 isolates from Rio de Janeiro. Attempts to correlate seroreactivity with HIV-1 neutralization with respect to HIV-1 polymorphism were not very successfull: while the Brazilian B clade B" variant could be recognized by binding assays, no significant distinction of HIV-1 clades/variants was observed in viral neutralization assays.