“…These evasion mechanisms must allow access to the CD4-binding site (CD4bs) by the membrane-distal domain of CD4, which is the size of a single immunoglobulin domain (Ryu et al, 1990;Wang et al, 1990). Some antibodies, such VRC01-class antibodies, mimic CD4 binding with their heavy chains, allowing for their neutralization of most circulating HIV-1 isolates (Huang et al, 2016;Wu et al, 2010;; other antibodies, such as the glycan276-dependent antibody VRC40 (Cottrell et al, 2021), evolve favorable binding interactions with glycans surrounding the CD4bs. These antibodies, however, require unusual complementarity determining regions (CDRs) or extensive somatic hypermutation (SHM), and generally developed only after a long period of chronic infection, making them difficult to elicit by vaccination.…”