Table 3

Novel approaches to the design of envelope immunogens

Mimic native trimer on virion surface

Redirect immune responses to conserved conformational epitopes

Add disulfides or other amino acids to stabilize conformational epitopes

Bind envelope to CD4 or CD4-mimetic peptide

Remove carbohydrate residue or entire carbohydrate side chains

Redirect responses away from variable epitopes

Remove one or more variable loops

Add carbohydrate side chains to hide

variable regions

Plotkin Journal of the International AIDS Society 2009 12:2   doi:10.1186/1758-2652-12-2