Development and immunological assessment of VLP-based immunogens exposing the membrane-proximal region of the HIV-1 gp41 protein.

Background The membrane-proximal external region (MPER) of HIV-1 gp41 is particularly conserved and target for the potent broadly neutralizing monoclonal antibodies (bnMAbs) 2F5, 4E10 and 10E8. Epitope focusing and stabilization present promising strategies to enhance the quality of immune responses to specific epitopes.