Broadly Neutralizing Antibodies Against HIV: New Insights to Inform Vaccine Design

HIV-1 poses immense immunological challenges to the humoral immune response because of its ability to shield itself and replicate and evolve rapidly. Although most currently licensed vaccines provide protection via the induction of antibodies (Abs) that can directly block infection ( 1 ), 30 years of HIV-1 vaccine research has failed to successfully elicit such Abs against globally relevant HIV strains. However, mounting evidence suggests that these broadly neutralizing antibodies (bNAbs) do emerge naturally in a significant fraction of infected subjects, albeit after years of infection, indicating that these responses can be selected naturally by the immune response but take long periods of time to evolve. We review the basic structural characteristics of broadly neutralizing antibodies and how they recognize the virus, and we discuss new vaccination strategies that aim to mimic natural evolution to guide B cells to produce protective Abs against HIV-1.