Background: The combination antiretroviral therapy (cART) could increase the number of circulating naive CD4 T lymphocytes, but was not able to eradicate human immunodeficiency virus-1 (HIV-1) infection.

Objective: Thus, induction of strong immune responses is important for control of HIV-1 infection. Furthermore, a simple and perfect serological method is required to detect virus in untreated-, treated- and drug resistant- HIV-1 infected individuals.

Methods: This study was conducted to assess and compare immunogenic properties of Nef, Vif, Vpr and Vpu accessory proteins as an antigen candidate in mice and their diagnostic importance in human as a biomarker.

Results: Our data showed that in mice, all heterologous prime/ boost regimens were more potent than homologous prime/ boost regimens in eliciting Th1 response and Granzyme B secretion as CTL activity. Moreover, the Nef, Vpu and Vif proteins could significantly increase Th1 immune response. In contrast, the Vpr protein could considerably induce Th2 immune response. On the other hand, among four accessory proteins, HIV-1 Vpu could significantly detect treated group from untreated group as a possible biomarker in human.

Conclusion: Generally, among accessory proteins, Nef, Vpu and Vif antigens were potentially more suitable vaccine antigen candidates than Vpr antigen. Human antibodies against all these proteins were higher in HIV-1 different groups than healthy group. Among them, Vpu was known as a potent antigen in diagnosis of treated from untreated individuals. The potency of accessory proteins as an antigen candidate in an animal model and a human cohort study are underway.

背景：联合抗逆转录病毒疗法 (cART) 可以增加循环初始 CD4 T 淋巴细胞的数量，但不能根除人类免疫缺陷病毒 1 (HIV-1) 感染。

目的：因此，诱导强烈的免疫反应对于控制 HIV-1 感染很重要。此外，需要一种简单而完美的血清学方法来检测未经治疗、治疗和耐药的 HIV-1 感染者的病毒。

方法：本研究旨在评估和比较 Nef、Vif、Vpr 和 Vpu 辅助蛋白作为小鼠抗原候选物的免疫原性特性及其作为生物标志物在人类中的诊断重要性。

结果：我们的数据显示，在小鼠中，所有异源​​初免/加强方案在引发 Th1 反应和颗粒酶 B 分泌作为 CTL 活性方面​​比同源初免/加强方案更有效。此外，Nef、Vpu 和 Vif 蛋白可以显着增加 Th1 免疫反应。相比之下，Vpr 蛋白可以显着诱导 Th2 免疫反应。另一方面，在四种辅助蛋白中，HIV-1 Vpu 可以从未治疗组中显着检测治疗组，作为人类可能的生物标志物。

结论：一般而言，在辅助蛋白中，Nef、Vpu和Vif抗原可能比Vpr抗原更合适的候选疫苗抗原。HIV-1 不同组中针对所有这些蛋白质的人类抗体均高于健康组。其中，Vpu 被认为是对未经治疗的个体进行诊断的有效抗原。辅助蛋白在动物模型和人类队列研究中作为候选抗原的效力正在进行中。