An antigenic atlas of HIV-1 escape from broadly neutralizing antibodies

Abstract

Anti-HIV broadly neutralizing antibodies (bnAbs) have revealed vaccine targets on the viruss Env protein and are themselves promising immunotherapeutics. The efficacy of bnAb-based therapies and vaccines depends in part on how readily the virus can escape neutralization. While structural studies can define contacts between bnAbs and Env, only functional studies can define mutations that confer escape. Here we map how all single amino-acid mutations to Env affect neutralization of HIV by nine bnAbs targeting five epitopes. For most bnAbs, mutations at only a small fraction of structurally defined contact sites mediated escape, and most escape occurred at sites that are near but do not directly contact the antibody. The mutations selected by two pooled bnAbs were similar to those expected from the combination of the bnAbs independent action. Overall, our mutation-level antigenic atlas provides a comprehensive dataset for understanding viral immune escape and refining therapies and vaccines.