Capturing viral diversity for in-vitro test reagents and HIV vaccine immunogen design

Purpose of reviewHIV diversity is a major challenge to accurate detection of HIV-specific immunity in vitro and HIV vaccine immunogen design alike. Although achieving extensive coverage of global viral diversity is a common goal for both tasks, different strategies for achieving maximal in-vitro detection of responses and optimal in-vivo induction of immune responses may be needed. This review describes and compares some of the most recently developed approaches. Recent findingsSingle sequence-based antigen sets as well as polyvalent peptide test reagents have been developed over recent years that are suitable for detection of comprehensive CD4+ and CD8+ T-cell immunity in the naturally infected or vaccinated host. These tools permit increasingly accurate assessment of the host immune response, thus providing the basis for identification of immune correlates of controlled HIV infection. SummaryThese recent findings and newly developed strategies that allow more comprehensive detection of HIV-specific T-cell responses provide the tools necessary to assess vaccine immunogenicity and breadth within genetically different host populations and relative to diverse local viral populations. They will ultimately inform design of vaccine immunogen sequences that can induce broadly protective cellular immunity.