BACKGROUND Live oral rotavirus vaccines have been less immunogenic and efficacious among children in poor developing countries compared with middle income and industrialized countries for reasons that are not yet completely understood. We assessed whether the neutralizing activity of breast milk could lower the titer of vaccine virus and explain this difference in vitro. METHODS Breast milk s...

Tenascin-C (TNC) is a newly identified innate HIV-1-neutralizing protein present in breast milk, yet its presence and potential HIV-inhibitory function in other mucosal fluids is unknown. In this study, we identified TNC as a component of semen and cervical fluid of HIV-1-infected and uninfected individuals, although it is present at a significantly lower concentration and frequency compared to...

BACKGROUND An important goal for dengue vaccines is to induce a high and durable level of neutralizing antibody. OBJECTIVE Three strategies were investigated for improving the immunogenicity of a prM+E dengue serotype 2 (DENV-2) DNA vaccine: 1) expression in two different plasmids; 2) adjustment of dose; and, 3) introduction of the E sequence of Japanese encephalitis virus (JEV) at the carbox...

Identifying the targets of broadly neutralizing antibodies to HIV-1 and understanding how these antibodies develop remain important goals in the quest to rationally develop an HIV-1 vaccine. We previously identified a participant in the CAPRISA Acute Infection Cohort (CAP257) whose plasma neutralized 84% of heterologous viruses. In this study we showed that breadth in CAP257 was largely due to ...

BACKGROUND Conserved neutralizing epitopes are considered to be a key role for eliciting broadly neutralizing antibody (NAb). Previously, two conserved neutralizing epitopes of HIV-1 CRF01_AE envelope were identified at amino acid 93-112 of the C1 (C1E) and at 218-239 of the C2 (C2E) regions. To access the potency of antibody directed against conserved epitopes, a monoclonal antibody (MAb) spec...

This study evaluated type-specific and cross-reactive neutralizing antibodies induced by immunization with modified surface glycoproteins (SU) of the 63 isolate of caprine arthritis-encephalitis lentivirus (CAEV-63). Epitope mapping of sera from CAEV-infected goats localized immunodominant linear epitopes in the carboxy terminus of SU. Two modified SU (SU-M and SU-T) and wild-type CAEV-63 SU (S...

Infection with human parvovirus B19 causes fifth disease, acute and chronic red cell aplasia, fetal hydrops, arthropathy, and other disorders. Antiviral antibodies limit B19 infection in vivo; however, the identification of serologic markers of protection has been hampered by the lack of a quantitative assay for parvovirus neutralization. A novel in vitro test for parvovirus neutralization has ...

Anti-p17 antibodies are able to neutralize human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) entry in a mouse model. In this study, we identified a region of sequence similarity between the epitopes of anti-p17 neutralizing antibodies and anti-gp41 neutralizing 2F5 antibody and verified cross-reactivity between p17 and 2F5 in vitro. The p17 sequence was modified to increase sequence identity between the p17 a...

Several studies have demonstrated elevated neutralizing antibodies to coxsackievirus B (CBV) and the presence of enteroviral RNA in peripheral blood in a subset of patients with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS). Of 10 patients with stable, persistently high titer of neutralizing antibody against CBV-3 and CBV5 were treated with ribavirin for 4 months, and 5 patients were subsequently treated with...

One approach to the development of an HIV vaccine is to design a protein template which can present gp120 epitopes inducing cross-neutralizing antibodies. To select a V3 sequence for immunogen design, we compared the neutralizing activities of 18 anti-V3 monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) derived from Cameroonian and Indian individuals infected with clade AG and C, respectively. It was found that V3 ...