THE SIMIAN IMMUNODEFICIENCY VIRUS TRANSMEMBRANE PROTEIN IS POORLY IMMUNOGENIC IN INACTIVATED VIRUS-VACCINE

The transmembrane proteins (TMP) of immunodeficiency lentiviruses are primary candidates for inclusion in AIDS vaccines, the design and test ing of which is facilitated by the SIV-Macaque infection model Antibod y responses to linear determinants in the SIVmac TMP were investigated in rhesus macaques either infected with the SIVmac J5 molecular clone or vaccinated with partially purified, formalin-inactivated SIVmac. I nfected animals were shown to recognise predominantly four regions in the external domain and three regions in the internal domain of the TM P defined by a series of nominally 20mer overlapping peptides. In cont rast SIV vaccinates had extremely restricted and weak antibody respons es to the TMP, indicating a selective loss of immunogenicity of this c omponent in the vaccine.