The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) has infected over
84 million
people since its discovery and is a huge threat to human health. While
an HIV vaccine is urgently needed to curb this devastating pandemic,
it has been notoriously difficult to develop, partly due to the extraordinary
high level of genetic variation of HIV. We designed a new HIV-1 envelope
glycoprotein nanoparticle (Env/NP) vaccine using amphiphilic polymers.
The Env/NP vaccine induced more potent and broader neutralizing activities
against multiple HIV-1 subtypes. Moreover, it elicits similar neutralizing
antibody responses after the storage at −80 °C, 4 °C
or room temperature post lyophilization. These results demonstrate
that the new Env/NP vaccine not only improves the HIV vaccine immune
responses but also is stable under different storage conditions. This
new nanovaccine approach can readily apply to other protein-based
vaccines.