{"id":9120,"date":"2020-10-01T19:50:26","date_gmt":"2020-10-01T17:50:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/h3africa.org\/?page_id=9120"},"modified":"2021-08-12T22:18:19","modified_gmt":"2021-08-12T20:18:19","slug":"immunoglobulin-gene-diversity-in-an-african-population-and-impact-antibody-function-in-hiv-infection","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/h3africa.org\/index.php\/immunoglobulin-gene-diversity-in-an-african-population-and-impact-antibody-function-in-hiv-infection\/","title":{"rendered":"Immunoglobulin Gene Diversity in an African Population and Impact Antibody Function in HIV Infection"},"content":{"rendered":"[vc_row][vc_column][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row css_animation=”fadeInDown”][vc_column][vc_column_text css_animation=”none” css=”.vc_custom_1590657817569{margin-top: 36px !important;}”]\n
H3Africa Research Project<\/em><\/a><\/h6>\n

Immunoglobulin Gene Diversity in an African Population and Impact Antibody Function in HIV Infection<\/h1>\n

The Goal: to explore the diversity of antibody genes in an African population and the impact of this variability on immune responses to HIV infection, to enable development of more effective vaccines.<\/h4>\n
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Project Leads<\/h3>\n[\/vc_column_text][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1\/4″]
\"morris1\"<\/div><\/div>

Dr. Lynn Morris<\/h4>

National Institute for Communicable Diseases<\/p>

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\"morris3\"<\/div><\/div>

Dr. Cathrine Scheepers<\/h4>

National Institute for Communicable Diseases<\/p>

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\"morris5\"<\/div><\/div>

Dr. Penelope Moore<\/h4>

National Institute for Communicable Diseases<\/p>

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\"morris2\"<\/div><\/div>

Dr. Bronwen Lambson<\/h4>

National Institute for Communicable Diseases<\/p>

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\"morris4\"<\/div><\/div>

Dr. Gunilla Karlsson Hedestam<\/h4>

National Institute for Communicable Diseases<\/p>

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\"morris6\"<\/div><\/div>

Dr. Arshad Ismail<\/h4>

National Institute for Communicable Diseases<\/p>

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\"morris7\"<\/div><\/div>

Dr. Nigel Garrett<\/h4>

CAPRISA, Doris Duke Medical Research Institute <\/p>

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Students<\/h3>[\/vc_column_text][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1\/4″]
\"morrisS1\"<\/div><\/div>

Ms Alaine Marsden<\/h4>

MSc student - National Institute for Communicable Diseases<\/p>

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\"morrisS2\"<\/div><\/div>

Ms Holly Spencer<\/h4>

MSc Student - National Institute for Communicable Diseases<\/p>

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\"morrisS3\"<\/div><\/div>

Mr Itai Ncube<\/h4>

MSc Student - National Institute for Communicable Diseases<\/p>

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The Problem<\/h3>\n

Immunoglobulin genes, amongst the most variable genes in the human genome, encode antibodies which are critical components of our immune defense against pathogens. The diversity of immunoglobulin genes within African populations is understudied compared to other populations. Documenting this variation, and defining its impact on HIV infection and other viral infections such as SARS-CoV-2 and influenza will allow us to develop more effective vaccines and therapeutics antibodies.<\/p>\n

Project Strategy<\/h3>\n
    \n
  1. To characterize genetic diversity in the part of antibodies responsible for binding pathogens, the Fab, in a cohort of African women at high risk of HIV infection.<\/li>\n
  2. To characterize genetic diversity in the Fc regions of immunoglobulin genes, which are responsible for recruiting immune cells.<\/li>\n
  3. To examine the effects of genetic variation on the immune responses to viral infection (including HIV, SARS-CoV-2 and influenza).<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Potential Impact<\/h3>\n

    This project will document the high levels of genetic diversity in immunoglobin genes in an African population compared to other global populations. It will also link novel genetic diversity to antibody function in HIV, SARS-CoV-2 and influenza infection. Understanding this will allow us to design more effective vaccines and therapeutics against these and other pathogens.<\/p>\n

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    Project Sites<\/h3>\n

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    \n
    \"\"<\/figure>\n
    \n

    <\/p>\n

    South Africa<\/strong><\/p>\n

    A:<\/strong> National Institute for Communicable Diseases\/ National Health Laboratory Services, Johannesburg<\/p>\n

    B:<\/strong> CAPRISA, KwaZulu Natal<\/p>\n

    Non-African Collaborators:<\/strong>
    Karolinska Institute (Sweden<\/strong>)<\/p>\n

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    Funding<\/h3>\n
    This work is supported by the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), Office of the Director (OD), the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), and the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) grant number U01AI136677.<\/div>\n<\/div>[\/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]\n

    Additional Resources<\/h3>\n[\/vc_column_text][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1\/3″][vc_btn title=”Project Publications (PubMed)” style=”custom” custom_background=”#c12000″ custom_text=”#ffffff” shape=”round” align=”center” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fpubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2F%3Fterm%3DAI136677%255BGrant%2BNumber%255D|title:Morris%20PubMed%20Search|target:%20_blank|”][\/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1\/3″][vc_btn title=”Scientific Description and Aims (NIH RePORT)” style=”custom” custom_background=”#c12000″ custom_text=”#ffffff” shape=”round” align=”center” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fprojectreporter.nih.gov%2Fproject_info_description.cfm%3Faid%3D9984249%26icde%3D51968077%26ddparam%3D%26ddvalue%3D%26ddsub%3D%26cr%3D1%26csb%3Ddefault%26cs%3DASC%26pball%3D|title:Morris%20NIH%20RePORT|target:%20_blank|”][\/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1\/3″][vc_btn title=”Download a PDF of this page” style=”custom” custom_background=”#c12000″ custom_text=”#ffffff” shape=”round” align=”center” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fh3africa.org%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2021%2F08%2FMorris_H3ACommDoc_amended_210129.pdf|title:Morris%20Comm%20Doc|target:%20_blank|”][\/vc_column_inner][\/vc_row_inner][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Antibodies are critical components of immune defense and are mediators of vaccine-elicited protection as well as autoimmunity. The heavy and light chains that comprise an antibody molecule are encoded by germline immunoglobulin (Ig) gene fragments that recombine and undergo somatic mutation thereby generating billions of specificities able to contend with a multitude of foreign antigens.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7,4],"tags":[77],"class_list":["post-9120","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","category-consortium-documents","category-projects","tag-nih-projects-research"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/h3africa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/9120","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/h3africa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/h3africa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/h3africa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/h3africa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9120"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/h3africa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/9120\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11265,"href":"https:\/\/h3africa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/9120\/revisions\/11265"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/h3africa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/h3africa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/h3africa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}