Development of artificial vaccines against HIV using defined epitopes

HIV may not follow the paradigm that has been used successfully for developing most viral vaccines, namely, that the best vaccine is the one that most closely mimics natural infection. This approach is based on the premise that natural infection leads to long-lasting protective immunity, which may not be applicable to HIV. Also, some immune responses elicited by infection with HIV may enhance infection or contribute to the development of immune deficiency. To overcome these problems, an artificial vaccine could be constructed using only antigenic epitopes that elicit neutralizing antibodies, helper T cells, and CD8+ cytotoxic T cells, and avoiding epitopes that elicit deleterious responses. Progress has been made in identifying all three of these types of epitopes, in characterizing their activity in animals, and in demonstrating that at least two of these can be linked to induce neutralizing antibodies without a carrier. Methods have also been developed to induce cytotoxic T cells. It is therefore feasible to construct an artificial vaccine for HIV that should be safer and more effective than a natural whole viral or subunit vaccine.