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Reversion of immune escape HIV variants upon transmission: insights into effective viral immunity.

Kent SJ, Fernandez CS, Dale CJ, Davenport MP

Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of Melbourne, Victoria 3010, Australia. skent@unimelb.edu.au

Many viruses that cause chronic viremic infections, such as human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1), mutate extensively to avoid effective control by the host immune system. However, each immune escape mutation probably results in some fitness cost to the virus. The most effective immune responses might be those that target the regions of the virus where escape mutation inflicts the largest fitness cost to the virus. A virus crippled by immune escape mutations would result in reduced viral load and delayed disease. Such knowledge could be used to rationally design more effective vaccines.

Published 6 June 2005 in Trends Microbiol, 13(6): 243-6.
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