Ronald Derking

Highlights • Recombinant HIV-1 envelope trimers can exhibit glycan under-occupancy • Under-occupancy induces non-neutralizing antibodies to artificial glycan holes • Glycan occupancy can be enhanced by sequon engineering • Enhanced glycan occupancy should reduce the induction of these antibodies Summary Artificial glycan holes on recombinant Env-based vaccines occur when a potential N-linked glycosylation site (PNGS) is under-occupied, but not on their viral counterparts.

HIV-1 mutates rapidly, making it difficult to design a vaccine that will protect people against all of the virus' iterations. A potential successful vaccine design might protect by eliciting broadly neutralizing antibodies (bNAbs), which target specific regions on HIV-1's trimeric envelope glycoprotein (Env) (see the Perspective by Mascola). Jardine et al.