Western Blot-Based Logistic Regression Model for the Identification of Recent HIV-1 Infection: A Promising HIV-1 Surveillance Approach for Resource-Limited Regions
BIOMED RESEARCH INTERNATIONAL
Authors: Huang, Jiegang; Wang, Minlian; Huang, Chunyuan; Liang, Bingyu; Jiang, Junjun; Ning, Chuanyi; Zang, Ning; Chen, Hui; Liu, Jie; Chen, Rongfeng; Liao, Yanyan; Ye, Li; Liang, Hao
Abstract
Objectives. Identifying recent infections is necessary to monitor HIV/AIDS epidemic; however, it needs to be further developed. Methods and Results. Participants were defined as having recent infection or older infection according to the estimated duration of HIV-1 infection and further assigned into training set and validation set according to their entering time points. Western blot (WB) confirmatory test and BED-CEIA were performed. The performance of the two methods on recent HIV-1 diagnosis was evaluated and compared. 81 subjects were enrolled in the training set and 72 in the validation set. Relative grey ratios of p24, p39, p31, p66, gp41, and gp160 were significantly higher in older infected patients of the training set. The present status of p55 was more frequently missing in recently infected patients in both sets. The logistic stepwise regression analysis of WB method shows sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy of 93.02%, 92.11%, and 92.59%. For BED-CEIA, they were 76.74%, 86.84%, and 81.48%. In the validation set, overall agreement rate, sensitivity, and specificity were 88.46%, 84.78%, and 86.11% in the WB-based method and 50.00%, 84.78%, and 72.22% in the BED-CEIA method. Conclusions. WB-based method is a promising approach to predict recent HIV-1 infection, especially in resource-limited regions.
Sublingual Priming with a HIV gp41-Based Subunit Vaccine Elicits Mucosal Antibodies and Persistent B Memory Responses in Non-Human Primates
Frontiers in Immunology
Authors: Bekri, Selma; Bourdely, Pierre; Luci, Carmelo; Dereuddre-Bosquet, Nathalie; Su, Bin; Martinon, Frederic; Braud, Veronique M.; Luque, Irene; Mateo, Pedro L.; Crespillo, Sara; Conejero-Lara, Francisco; Moog, Christiane; Le Grand, Roger; Anjuere, Fabienne
Abstract
Persistent B cell responses in mucosal tissues are crucial to control infection against sexually transmitted pathogens like human immunodeficiency virus 1 (HIV-1). The genital tract is a major site of infection by HIV. Sublingual (SL) immunization in mice was previously shown to generate HIV-specific B cell immunity that disseminates to the genital tract. We report here the immunogenicity in female cynomolgus macaques of a SL vaccine based on a modified gp41 polypeptide coupled to the cholera toxin B subunit designed to expose hidden epitopes and to improve mucosal retention. Combined SL/intramuscular (IM) immunization with such mucoadhesive gp41-based vaccine elicited mucosal HIV-specific IgG and IgA antibodies more efficiently than IM immunization alone. This strategy increased the number and duration of gp41-specific IgA secreting cells. Importantly, combined immunization improved the generation of functional antibodies 3 months after vaccination as detected in HIV-neutralizing assays. Therefore, SL immunization represents a promising vaccine strategy to block HIV-1 transmission.