ANTIBODIES TO THE HIV TYPE-2 CORE PROTEIN P26 AND VPX - ASSOCIATION WITH DISEASE PROGRESSION

A longitudinal cohort study was conducted to define the prevalence and temporal pattern of antibody response to the HIV-2 virion-associated proteins p26(gag) and Vpx, One hundred and forty-one asymptomatic HIV- 2-infected women were enrolled, and followed for up to 11 years. Eight y-one percent of the subjects had antibodies to p26, and 51% to Vpx; r esponse to these two antigens was not correlated, The response to both proteins was determined early in infection, and remained stable over time. The absence of antibodies to p26 was a highly significant predic tor of CDC category IV HIV-related disease (p < 0.01) in both univaria te and multivariate analysis. Antibody response to Vpx alone was not a ssociated with disease progression. However, those individuals lacking anti-p26 antibodies, and with anti-Vpx antibodies, were six times mor e likely to be classified as CDC category IV by the end of the study ( p < 0.01), This represents the first identification of virus-specific serological markers for HIV-2-related disease progression.