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Imaging polyclonal antibody responses to experimental HIV vaccines


EMSL Project ID
51441

Abstract

Rational vaccine design aims to focus antibody responses to vulnerable sites on the primary antigens. We used our recently developed electron microscopy polyclonal epitope mapping (EMPEM) approach to describe the antibody specificities elicited by immunization of animals with recombinant HIV subunit vaccines at low resolution to map on- and off- target responses. Single particle EM and 3D classification is uniquely suited to deal with the large diversity of antibody-antigen complexes generated using our EMPEM approach. EMPEM overcomes one of the rate limiting steps in analyzing immune responses to vaccines by identifying epitopes targeted. Isolation of monoclonal antibodies remains a major bottleneck for understanding the molecular details of these antibodies. We have therefore now extended our EMPEM approach to high resolution cryoEM to provide a more detailed understanding of the molecular interactions between polyclonal serum antibodies and antigens and be directly used for structure-based vaccine design.

Project Details

Start Date
2020-06-15
End Date
2021-03-17
Status
Closed

Team

Principal Investigator

Andrew Ward
Institution
The Scripps Research Institute

Team Members

Aleksandar Antanasijevic
Institution
École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne