HIV-1 proteins in infected cells determine the presentation of viral peptides by HLA class I and class II molecules and the nature of the cellular and humoral antiviral immune responses--a review.

The goals of molecular virology and immunology during the second half of the 20th century have been to provide the conceptual approaches and the tools for the development of safe and efficient virus vaccines for the human population. The success of the vaccination approach to prevent virus epidemics was attributed to the ability of inactivated and live virus vaccines to induce a humoral immune response and to produce antiviral neutralizing antibodies in the vaccinees. The successful development of antiviral vaccines and their application to most of the human population led to a marked decrease in virus epidemics around the globe. Despite this remarkable achievement, the developing epidemics of HIV-caused AIDS (accompanied by activation of latent herpesviruses in AIDS patients), epidemics of Dengue fever, and infections with respiratory syncytial virus may indicate that conventional approaches to the development of virus vaccines that induce antiviral humoral responses may not suffice. This may indicate that virus vaccines that induce a cellular immune response, leading to the destruction of virus-infected cells by CD8+ cytotoxic T cells (CTLs), may be needed. Antiviral CD8+ CTLs are induced by viral peptides presented within the peptide binding grooves of HLA class I molecules present on the surface of infected cells. Studies in the last decade provided an insight into the presentation of viral peptides by HLA class I molecules to CD8+ T cells. These studies are here reviewed, together with a review of the molecular events of virus replication, to obtain an overview of how viral peptides associate with the HLA class I molecules. A similar review is provided on the molecular pathway by which viral proteins, used as subunit vaccines or inactivated virus particles, are taken up by endosomes in the endosome pathway and are processed by proteolytic enzymes into peptides that interact with HLA class II molecules during their transport to the plasma membrane of antigen-presenting cells. Such peptides are identified by T-cell receptors present on the plasma membrane of CD4+ T helper cells. The need to develop viral synthetic peptides that will have the correct amino acid motifs for binding to HLA class I A, B, and C haplotypes is reviewed. The development of HIV vaccines that will stimulate, in an uninfected individual, the humoral (antibody) and cellular (CTL) immune defenses against HIV and HIV-infected cells, respectively, and may lead to protection from primary HIV infection are discussed.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)