Inhibition of replication of primary HIV-1 isolates in huPBL-NOD/Scid mice by antibodies from HIV-1 infected patients

Although a limited number of HIV-infected patients have broadly neutralizing antibodies, it has not been examined whether these antibodies can protect against infection with primary virus in vivo. Here we screened the plasma of 23 HIV-1-infected patients for broadly neutralizing antibodies. Purified antibodies from subjects with broad and more narrow responses were administered to huPBL-NOD/Scid mice that were subsequently challenged with primary viruses of clade A, B and CRF01_AE. Although we observed a lack of correlation between the data from the in vitro neutralization assay and the results from the passive immunization experiments, we report for the first time that antibodies from HIV-infected persons can inhibit replication of primary virus isolates in an animal model.