TEMPORAL ANALYSIS OF THE ANTIBODY-RESPONSE TO HIV ENVELOPE PROTEIN INHIV-INFECTED LABORATORY WORKERS

Three laboratory workers have been infected with the IIIB strain of HI V; their antibody response to HIV has been studied in serial serum spe cimens. Because the infecting virus is known, the fine specificity of the antibody response was studied on the homologous strain of HIV. Ant i-p17, anti-p24, anti-gp160, CD4/gp120 blocking and neutralizing antib odies developed in parallel. Epitope mapping of the anti-gp160 respons e indicated several regions that consistently induced an antibody resp onse. Serum contained antibody which reacted with V3-specific peptides corresponding to the very tip of the loop and crossreactivity was see n with V3 loop peptides from other sequence divergent strains of HIV. Antibody to the V1 loop was produced at levels comparable with that se en for the V3-loop. Anti-V1 neutralized HIV with a titration curve equ ivalent to an anti-V3 monoclonal antibody. Because the infecting virus is known and serial reisolates have been obtained, we explored the re lationship between production of antibody to a given epitope and mutat ion in the virus. The data suggest that an association exists, but do not clearly indicate that antibody drives the selection for mutant vir uses. The findings presented here provide a fine specificity analysis of the evolution of the antibody response to HIV in greater detail tha n has previously been performed.