the present invention relates to a rapid and simple screen for identification of , and distinguishing between , immune responses that are not made because of host immune control and down - regulation of such responses , and immune responses that are not made because of defects in the vaccine epitopes themselves . the instant screening methodology should speed up vaccine development , including but not limited to , development of an hiv vaccine . the present invention results , at least in part , from studies designed to explore the evolution of neutralizing antibody responses to hiv - 1 in acute and early infection . the studies involve mapping of the epitopes recognized by narrow and broadly reactive nabs , and address the novel concept that molecular mimicry exists between certain env epitopes on hiv - 1 , including the broadly reactive mper 2f5 and 4e10 epitopes , and normal host antigens resulting in host b cell tolerance . recent data demonstrate that mabs 2f5 , 4e10 and igg1b12 are polyspecific , autoreactive abs that bind with high affinity to multiple human autoantigens ( haynes et al , science 308 : 1906 - 1908 ( 2005 )). these data thus suggest a new explanation and paradigm for understanding the ineffective host neutralizing antibody response to hiv - 1 in both acute infection and in normal subjects following vaccination with hiv - 1 envelope . thus , hiv - 1 may have evolved to escape antibody responses by having conserved neutralizing epitopes as mimics of autoantibody epitopes . these data suggest the hypothesis that acute hiv infection ( ahi ) and current hiv - 1 vaccines do not routinely induce robust anti - envelope neutralizing antibodies because antibodies targeting conserved epitopes are derived from autoreactive b cell clones that are normally deleted or made tolerant upon antigenic stimulation by hiv - 1 env . these observations may also explain the rare occurrence of hiv - 1 in sle patients who may be unable to delete these self - reactive clones ( fox and isenberg arthritis and rheum . 40 : 1168 , 1997 ; palacios and santos j . std aids 15 : 277 , 2004 ). if broadly nabs to hiv - 1 are made in the context of disordered b cell immunoregulation in autoimmune disease , then autoimmune patients may be fully or partially protected on this basis . since the autoantigens recognized by humans are conserved throughout phylogeny , i . e ., are also the same autoantigens recognized by mouse strains that have autoimmune disease , then it should be possible to explore the immunogenicity of epitopes on vaccines that may mimic autoantigens in animal models of autoimmune disease for their immunogenicity . the present invention uses autoimmune animal ( preferably rodent , more preferably mouse ) strains to screen immunogens for being subjected to toleragenic host b cell regulatory mechanisms . in accordance with a preferred embodiment of the invention , an immunogen is injected into both normal mice and autoimmune mice that have defects in b cell tolerance mechanisms . advantageously the autoimmune mice are the mrl / lpr −/− ( jackson labs mrl / mpj - faslpr / j no . 000485 ) strain that has a mutation in the fas gene ( cd95 ) that mediates programmed cell death in b cells ( mrl / lpr −/− mice represent a spontaneous model of sle that closely resembles the human disease including polygenic inheritance , glomerulonephritis and gender bias ). antibodies against the epitope that one desires to induce antibodies to are measured in the serum after several immunizations in , for example , either elisa or surface plasmon reasonance or in a functional antibody assay such as a hiv neutralizing antibody assay . when the immunogen is structurally correct and the desired immune responses are not made because of host control , then the normal mice do not respond and the autoimmune mice that have defects in b cell tolerance mechanisms do respond . when the immunogen is not structurally correct , or for whatever reason the desired epitope is not on the surface of the immunogen , then neither the normal mouse strain nor the autoimmune mouse strain respond . for the 2f5 membrane proximal external region ( mper ) of the hiv - 1 gp160 envelope , that is a target of broadly neutralizing antibodies , the mrl / lpr −/− strain provided this answer . that the mrl strain could responded to this mper gp160 region and the balb / c mouse strain did not , suggesting that production of this antibody was regulated by b cell deletion mechanisms involving induction of b cell clone apoptosis that is controlled by the fas gene . other mouse strains with different defects in b cell tolerance , such as non - b cell deletional mechanisms ( such as b cell anergy ) and b cell receptor editing , can be used to screen for the mechanisms of responding to other epitopes on hiv - 1 and epitopes on other infectious agent vaccines . for example , there are several models of mouse autoimmune disease each with different mechanisms of breaks in tolerance that leads to autoreactive immune responses . in mrl / lpr +/+ mice , there is a predisposition to making autoantibodies by genes that are not understood , and in the strain with the fas mutation , mrl / lpr −/− mice , severe autoimmune disease with uncontrolled lymphoproliferation occurs . fas is a tumor necrosis factor ( tnf )- like surface receptor on lymphoid cells that mediates apoptosis when it encounters its ligand , fas - l ( watanabe - fukunaga et al , nature 356 : 314 - 317 , 1992 ). a similar model from mutations in the fas ligand is found in the gld / gld −/− mouse . nzb , nzw , and nzb / nzw f1 mice all have varying degrees of ability to make autoantibodies , with the f1 mice having frank and severe autoimmune disease similar to human lupus erythematosus ( rose and mackay , the autoimmune diseases 3 rd ed . academic press , ny , n . y . 1998 p290 - 292 ). the palmerston north strain of mice also make autoantibodies to self and have lupus like arthritis in older mice ( rose and mackay , the autoimmune diseases 3 rd ed . academic press , ny , n . y . 1998 p290 - 292 ). the bxsb mouse model is one in which the y chromosome associated autoimmunity accelerator ( yaa ) gene in the bxsb model that results in early death in males from glomerulonephritis related to high titers of anti - dsdna autoantibodies ( rose and mackay , the autoimmune diseases 3 rd ed . academic press , ny , n . y . 1998 p290 - 292 ). as other genes are identified , there will be ever increasing numbers of potentially useful mouse strains produced from the process of homologous recombination or “ knock - out ” mouse technology ( smithies , o , nat . rev . genet . 2005 may ; 6 ( 5 ): 419 - 25 ). underexpression of the following genes have been associated with autoimmune or uncontrolled lymphocyte growth in animals and humans : tnf alpha , il - 1 receptor antagonist , stat - 3 , tgf beta , programmed death - 1 ( pd - 1 ), cytotoxic t lymphocyte antigen , 4 ( ctla - 4 ), il - 10 , complement deficiency of c1 , c2 , c3 or c4 , tnf factor receptor 1 , fas ( cd95 , apo1 ), fas ligand , perforin , caspase 10 , bcl - 10 , p53 , bax , bcl - 2 , c - iap2 , and naip1 ( reviewed in haynes and fauci , introduction to the immune system chapter 295 in harrisons principles in internal medicine 16 th edition , 2005 ; mcgraw hill , ny , n . y . eds . kasper , brqawnwald , fauci , hauser , longo , jamison , from table 295 - 12 of that edition ). mice with underexpression of knockouts of these genes are also suitable for use in the instant assay in the same manner as are the mrl mice for the 2f5 epitope of gp41 antibodies . one hypothesis to explain why anti - mper and igg1b12 - like antibodies are not routinely made by vaccinated animals and man , and by patients during ahi , is that the b cells making these species of antibodies are tolerant because they are suppressed by t regulatory cells naturally or induced by hiv - 1 . the loss of autoreactive b cell tolerance and induction of autoreactive antibody production may require both the generation of t cell help and overcoming suppression mediated by t regulatory cells . recently , cd4 +, cd25 + t cell number was studied over time in the nc cohort of ahi , and it was found that during the early stages of ahi ( the first two months of infection before seropositivity ) as the virus load falls , and cd4 and cd8 t cell proliferation wanes , the levels of circulating cd4 +, cd25 + t cells rise ( sempowski et al j . clin . immunol . 25 : 461 - 471 , 2005 ). t regulatory cells have been shown to control immune responses in a number of infections and clinical situations ( shevach , et al immunol . rev . 182 : 58 , 2001 ), and these cells can suppress the response to vaccines . thus , mouse models in which t regulatory cells have been depleted or do not develop can be used to study which vaccine epitopes are not responded to because of host control by t regulatory cells ( tregs ). for example , mice can be produced that do not develop t regulatory cells by neonatally thymectomizing them ( reviewed in shevach et al above ). mice can be depleted of cd4 + cd25 + tregs using a depleting anti - cd25 antibody ( fn toka , s suvas , and bt rouse , j . virol . 78 : 13082 , 2004 ), using a depleting anti - cd25 immunotoxin , and by using a depleting anti - gitr antibody , since most tregs are gitr + at rest . alternatively , t regulatory function can be inhibited in mice to provide a novel screening model by activation of gitr on cd4 + cd25 + tregs using an agonistic antibody to gitr ( shmizu et al . nat . immunol . 3 : 135 - 42 , 2005 ), or using an agonistic antibody to ox40 , which is reported to ablate treg immunosuppression but has other immunostimulatory effects on cd4 + and cd8 + t cells ( valzasina et al . blood 105 : 2845 - 51 , 2005 ). alternatively , an agonistic antibody to 4 - 1bbl , which again is reported to ablate treg immunosuppression but has other immunostimulatory effects on cd4 + and cd8 + t cells ( choi b k et al . j leukoc biol . 75 : 785 - 91 , 2004 ) can be used , as can gitr ligand stimulation of gitr . further , a novel animal model of lack of t regulatory cell development and survival , the cd7 , cd28 double knock out mouse , can be used as described by sempowski et al . ( j . immunol . 172 : 787 - 794 , 2004 ). this model of autoimmunity develops autoimmune thyroiditis . all of the above - described manipulations can be used to create mice with defective t regulatory function that result in enhanced responses to vaccine immunizations and allow the discrimination of those immunogens that were inducing antibodies that are controlled by the host vs . those vaccine immunogens that are inherently non - immunogenic from the vaccine design point of view . as regards animal models of receptor editing in the analysis of vaccine immunogens , there are two mouse strains of relevance here : 3 - 83 centrally deleting transgenic mice ( tiegs et al ., jem , 1993 ) and “ macroself ” transgenic mouse ( ait - azzouzene et al ., jem , 2005 ). both systems allow for sensitive measurement of receptor editing ; the latter model has the advantage of assessing this in a normal , polyclonal immune system . an assessment can be made not only how but also where receptor editing is altered in macroself mice crossed onto autoimmune - prone strains such as mrl / lpr −/− and bxsb . in these types of animal models , the effect of receptor editing on induction of the desired antibody types can be studied . immunogens that can be used in the context of the instant assay include , but are not limited to , immunogens from infectious agents such as hiv , hepatitis c , mycobacteria species , west nile virus , and ebola hemmorhagic fever virus . as regards hiv , the immunogen can be derived from , for example , hiv tat protein or hiv - 1 envelope . certain aspects of the present invention are described in greater detail in the non - limiting examples that follows . hiv - 1 subtype c is the most common hiv - 1 subtype in africa and many parts of asia . however , to date , hiv - 1 vaccine candidate immunogens have not induced neutralizing antibodies against subtype c primary isolates of the desired potency and breadth . the centralized gene strategy has been used to overcome hiv - 1 diversity and the year 2001 group m consensus envelope gene ( con - s ) has been generated ( see fig4 ). con - s env has been compared with wild - type ( wt ) subtype a , b and c envs for the ability to induce antibodies in guinea pigs that neutralize hiv - 1 primary isolates . fig1 shows the oligomeic nature of the gp140 envs tested , and table 1 shows the neutralizing antibody results . envs that express the broadly neutralizing antibody epitopes of 2f5 , 4e10 , igg1b12 and 2g12 like con - s would be expected to induce antibodies that broadly neutralize hiv - 1 while those that do not express these epitopes would not be expected to do so . while con - s is the best of any known env to date with regard to the ability to induce anti - subtype c neutralizing antibodies , the assays described herein define why production of more potent and more broadly neutralizing antibodies is not observed . while wt a , b and c envs all induced neutralization of select subtype b hiv - 1 isolates , only subtype a env neutralized any non - b isolates ( tv - 1 , 92br025 . 9 , subtype cs , and 92rw020 , subtype a ) ( see table 1 ). in contrast , the group m consensus con - s gp140 env induced antibodies that neutralized the subtype b and a isolates that were neutralized by wt env - induced antibodies , and as well , neutralized the subtype c isolates tv - 1 , du123 , zm18108 . 6 and 92br025 . no mixture of subtype c or b envs with con - s augmented the breadth of con - s induced - neutralizing antibodies . absorption with v1 - v5 con - s peptides indicated that most of the neutralizing activity induced by con - s gp140 was targeted primarily to the v3 loop . however , immunization with the con - s v3 peptide itself could not induce similar antibodies . thus , the year 2001 con - s gp140 has a v3 loop that assumes a conformation in the context of the gp140 env that induces antibodies that neutralize subsets of subtype b and c hiv - 1 primary isolates with a breadth not seen in antibodies induced by wt envs . nonetheless , none of these envs induced antibodies with specificities similar in breadth to those represented by broadly neutralizing mabs 2f5 , 4e10 , 2g12 and igg1b12 . to determine the feasibility of using a mouse model to determine if there is host control over a desired vaccine epitope to target for an antibody response , the mrl / lpr −/− mouse ( jackson labs 000485 , mrl / mpj - fas lpr / j ) was immunized with the group m consensus oligomeric envelope , con - s , 25 μg per mouse per immunization , formulated with emulsigen in an oil in water emulsion per the manufacturer &# 39 ; s recommendations . the control strain used was balb / c mice from charles river laboratories . animals were immunized on day 0 and bled 10 days later . con s in emulsigen + ocpg : for use in mouse # 285 , 286 , 287 , 288 , 289 ; mouse # 295 , 296 , 297 , 298 , 299 . one batch of con s 140 cfi in emulsigen + ocpg is prepared that will serve to immunize all groups : 3 groups × 5 mice / group = 15 mice ( add 2 extra mice )= 17 mice . based on concentration of con s 140 cfi , determine the volume needed for 425 μg of protein . add saline to volume of 1 . 7 ml . mix 1 : 1 with 1 . 7 ml of 2 × emulsigen / ocpg . oligo cpgs were made at the duke dna synthesis facility using mouse cpg sequences from pisetsky et al clinical immunology 100 : 157 - 163 , 2001 . peptides are diluted to 2 μg / ml in 0 . 1m sodium bicarbonate . coat wells of high - binding elisa plate ( easywash , costar 3369 ) with 100 μl / well at room temperature for 2 h , or overnight at 4 ° c . block wells 1 h with super block for 1 h , or overnight at 4 ° c . incubate 50 μl / well , diluted antibodies / sera in super block for 2 h at room temperature . add 100 μl / well of alkaline phosphatase conjugated , goat anti - mouse igg ( whole molecule , sigma a - 3562 ) antibody , diluted in super block , for 1 h at room temperature . add 100 μl / well of substrate to wells for 45 minutes in the dark . 40 g whey ( obtained from james robinson ) ( whey is available from ross lab . ( columbus , ohio ) and sigma - aldrich ( cat # w1500 ) substrate ( per 100 ml ), p - npp ( 4 - nitrophenyl phosphate di ( 2 - amino - 2 - ethyl - 1 , 3 - propanediol ) salt ( sigma , n6260 ) the sequence of the p - 4e10 and sp62 peptides is as follows : fig2 shows that in balb / c normal mice , con - s after one immunization did not induce any significant antibody levels to the 2f5 gp41 peptide epitope . the hatched bars are the prebleed values for each of 5 mice , and the solid bars are the values after the first immunization . fig3 shows that , in contrast to balb / c mice , immunization of mrl / lpr −/− mice with the con - s oliogmer induced 4 of 5 animals to make high levels of antibodies against the 2f5 gp41 epitope . these data demonstrate that the mouse immune system can indeed recognize the 2f5 epitope on the surface of the env oligomer , and that in the absence of the fas gene - mediated b cell negative selection by apoptosis , the animal can make ( i . e ., is released from b cell negative selection to make ) an otherwise “ forbidden ” antibody response . these data indicate that there is nothing inherently wrong with the immunogen and that formulation of the immunogen in an adjuvant or other vector is required that will lead to breaking tolerance in otherwise normal animals . since the mouse immune system can respond to this immunogen in this manner , in all likelihood the human immune system will respond in a similar manner . the data presented in fig5 ( balb / c mice ) and fig6 ( mrl / lpr −/− mice ) also show that mrl / lpr −/− mice , in contrast to balb / c mice , make high levels of antibodies against 2f5 and cardiolipin . fig7 shows the design of b cell tetramers with the hiv peptide epitope biotinylated and bound to the streptavidin tetramer . the streptavidin can be labled with a number of fluorochromes . fig8 shows that tetramers will cross link b cell ig receptors on the surface of the b cell . fig9 shows in normal and mrl naive unimmunized mice that there is a b220 + hi population of b cells that bind the tetramer . these data suggest that these cells in normal mice are anergic and do not make antibody constitutively to the 2f5 epitope , while these b cells in mrl are not anergic and make the antibody . fig1 shows the origin of the 2f5 + b cells in balb / c normal and mrl autoimmune mice . the anergic 2f5 + b cells in normal mice are b 2 mature follicular cells that are cd23 hi and cd21hi , while the 2f5 + b cells in mrl mice are marginal zone b cells and are cd23 low , cd21 hi cells . the data presented imply that spontaneous anti - mper antibodies are made in mrl mice because 2f5 epitope - reactive b cells are in different subsets and are under different immunoregulatory controls in naïve balb / c versus mrl mice . all references and other information sources cited above are hereby incorporated by reference .
the present invention relates , in general , to a method of assaying an immune response induced by an immunogen , and , more particularly , to a method of assaying a immunogen for its ability to induce a desired immune response , wherein the assay is effected in an autoimmune animal .