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Publication Abstract from PubMed

Characterizing polyclonal antibody responses via currently available methods is inherently complex and difficult. Mapping epitopes in an immune response is typically incomplete, which creates a barrier to fully understanding the humoral response to antigens and hinders rational vaccine design efforts. Here, we describe a method of characterizing polyclonal responses by using electron microscopy, and we applied this method to the immunization of rabbits with an HIV-1 envelope glycoprotein vaccine candidate, BG505 SOSIP.664. We detected known epitopes within the polyclonal sera and revealed how antibody responses evolved during the prime-boosting strategy to ultimately result in a neutralizing antibody response. We uncovered previously unidentified epitopes, including an epitope proximal to one recognized by human broadly neutralizing antibodies as well as potentially distracting non-neutralizing epitopes. Our method provides an efficient and semiquantitative map of epitopes that are targeted in a polyclonal antibody response and should be of widespread utility in vaccine and infection studies.

Electron-Microscopy-Based Epitope Mapping Defines Specificities of Polyclonal Antibodies Elicited during HIV-1 BG505 Envelope Trimer Immunization.,Bianchi M, Turner HL, Nogal B, Cottrell CA, Oyen D, Pauthner M, Bastidas R, Nedellec R, McCoy LE, Wilson IA, Burton DR, Ward AB, Hangartner L Immunity. 2018 Aug 21;49(2):288-300.e8. doi: 10.1016/j.immuni.2018.07.009. Epub, 2018 Aug 7. PMID:30097292^[1]

From MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.