Cellular and humoral antigenic epitopes in HIV and SIV.

The article summarizes the work from many laboratories in the identification of antigenic regions from HIV, a variety of methods of identification and interpretation of results means that not all groups agree on the importance of certain epitopes. However, consensus agreement on many regions exist where independent laboratories have confirmed results from others. The knowledge of these regions can be applied in several ways to improve understanding of the natural immune response to HIV, to contemplate manipulation of immune responses in infected individuals, either stimulation as active immunotherapy or suppression of deleterious responses, and in the design of a subunit prophylactic vaccine.