The HIV-1-envelope (Env) trimer is covered by a glycan shield of ~90 N-linked oligosaccharides, which comprises roughly half its mass and is a key component of HIV evasion from humoral immunity. To understand how antibodies can overcome the barriers imposed by the glycan shield, we crystallized fully glycosylated Env trimers from clades A, B and G, visualizing the shield at 3.4-3.7 Å resolution. These structures reveal the HIV-1-glycan shield to comprise a network of interlocking oligosaccharides, substantially ordered by glycan crowding, which encase the protein component of Env and enable HIV-1 to avoid most antibody-mediated neutralization. The revealed features delineate a taxonomy of N-linked glycan-glycan interactions. Crowded and dispersed glycans are differently ordered, conserved, processed and recognized by antibody. The structures, along with glycan-array binding and molecular dynamics, reveal a diversity in oligosaccharide affinity and a requirement for accommodating glycans amongst known broadly neutralizing antibodies that target the glycan-shielded trimer.

The HIV-1 fusion peptide, comprising 15 to 20 hydrophobic residues at the N terminus of the Env-gp41 subunit, is a critical component of the virus-cell entry machinery. Here, we report the identification of a neutralizing antibody, N123-VRC34.01, which targets the fusion peptide and blocks viral entry by inhibiting conformational changes in gp120 and gp41 subunits of Env required for entry. Crystal structures of N123-VRC34.01 liganded to the fusion peptide, and to the full Env trimer, revealed an epitope consisting of the N-terminal eight residues of the gp41 fusion peptide and glycan N88 of gp120, and molecular dynamics showed that the N-terminal portion of the fusion peptide can be solvent-exposed. These results reveal the fusion peptide to be a neutralizing antibody epitope and thus a target for vaccine design.

A central goal of HIV-1 vaccine research is the elicitation of antibodies capable of neutralizing diverse primary isolates of HIV-1. Here we show that focusing the immune response to exposed N-terminal residues of the fusion peptide, a critical component of the viral entry machinery and the epitope of antibodies elicited by HIV-1 infection, through immunization with fusion peptide-coupled carriers and prefusion stabilized envelope trimers, induces cross-clade neutralizing responses. In mice, these immunogens elicited monoclonal antibodies capable of neutralizing up to 31% of a cross-clade panel of 208 HIV-1 strains. Crystal and cryoelectron microscopy structures of these antibodies revealed fusion peptide conformational diversity as a molecular explanation for the cross-clade neutralization. Immunization of guinea pigs and rhesus macaques induced similarly broad fusion peptide-directed neutralizing responses, suggesting translatability. The N terminus of the HIV-1 fusion peptide is thus a promising target of vaccine efforts aimed at eliciting broadly neutralizing antibodies.

Broadly neutralizing antibodies (bNAbs) against HIV-1-Env V1V2 arise in multiple donors. However, atomic-level interactions had only been determined with antibodies from a single donor, making commonalities in recognition uncertain. Here we report the co-crystal structure of V1V2 with antibody CH03 from a second donor and model Env interactions of antibody CAP256-VRC26 from a third. These V1V2-directed bNAbs utilized strand-strand interactions between a protruding antibody loop and a V1V2 strand, but differed in their N-glycan recognition. Ontogeny analysis indicated protruding loops to develop early, with glycan interactions maturing over time. Altogether, the multidonor information suggested V1V2-directed bNAbs to form an ‘extended class’, for which we engineered ontogeny-specific antigens: Env trimers with chimeric V1V2s that interacted with inferred ancestor and intermediate antibodies. The ontogeny-based design of vaccine antigens described here may provide a general means for eliciting antibodies of a desired class.

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While the HIV-1-glycan shield is known to shelter Env from the humoral immune response, its quantitative impact on antibody elicitation has been unclear. Here we use targeted deglycosylation to measure the impact of the glycan shield on elicitation of antibodies against the CD4 supersite. We engineered diverse Env trimers with select glycans removed proximal to the CD4 supersite, characterized their structures and glycosylation, and immunized guinea pigs and rhesus macaques. Immunizations yielded little neutralization against wild-type viruses, but potent CD4-supersite neutralization (titers 1:>1,000,000 against 4-glycan-deleted autologous viruses with over 90% breadth against 4-glycan-deleted heterologous strains exhibiting tier-2 neutralization character). To a first approximation, the immunogenicity of the glycan-shielded protein surface was negligible, with Env-elicited neutralization (ID50) proportional to the exponential of the protein-surface area accessible to antibody. Based on these high titers and exponential relationship, we propose site-selective deglycosylated trimers as priming immunogens to increase the frequency of site-targeting antibodies.

A third of the human genome encodes N-glycosylated proteins. These are co-translationally translocated into the lumen/membrane of the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) where they fold and assemble before they are transported to their final destination. Here, we show that calnexin, a major ER chaperone involved in glycoprotein folding is palmitoylated and that this modification is mediated by the ER palmitoyltransferase DHHC6. This modification leads to the preferential localization of calnexin to the perinuclear rough ER, at the expense of ER tubules. Moreover, palmitoylation mediates the association of calnexin with the ribosome-translocon complex (RTC) leading to the formation of a supercomplex that recruits the actin cytoskeleton, leading to further stabilization of the assembly. When formation of the calnexin-RTC supercomplex was affected by DHHC6 silencing, mutation of calnexin palmitoylation sites or actin depolymerization, folding of glycoproteins was impaired. Our findings thus show that calnexin is a stable component of the RTC in a manner that is exquisitely dependent on its palmitoylation status. This association is essential for the chaperone to capture its client proteins as they emerge from the translocon, acquire their N-linked glycans and initiate folding.

If we truly understand proteins, we should be able to design functional proteins purposefully from scratch. While the de novo design of proteins has seen many successes1–11, no small molecule ligand- or organic cofactor-binding protein has been designed entirely from first principles to achieve i) a unique structure and ii) a predetermined binding-site geometry with sub-Å accuracy. Such achievements are prerequisites for the design of proteins that control and enable complex reaction trajectories, where the relative placements of cofactors, substrates, and protein side chains must be established within the length scale of a chemical bond. Here, we develop and test a strategy for design of small molecule-binding proteins, based on the concept that the entire protein contributes to establishing the binding geometry of a ligand12–15. Hence, what are traditionally considered as separate sectors – the hydrophobic core and ligand-binding site – we treat as an inseparable unit. We utilize flexible backbone sequence design of a parametrically defined protein template to simultaneously pack the protein interior both proximal to and remote from the ligand-binding site. Thus, tight interdigitation of core side chains quite removed from the binding site structurally restrains the first- and second-shell packing around the ligand. We apply this principle to the decades-old problem of structural non-uniqueness in de novo-designed heme-binding proteins16. We designed a novel protein, PS1, which binds a highly electron-deficient, non-natural porphyrin at temperatures up to 100 °C. The high-resolution structure of holo-PS1 is in sub-Å agreement with the design. The structure of apo-PS1 retains the remote core packing of the holo, predisposing a flexible binding region for the desired ligand-binding geometry. Our results reveal the unification of core packing and binding site definition as an essential principle of ligand-binding protein design.