Patent ID: 7744887

Claim:
An isolated HIV monoclonal antibody comprising an antibody binding portion that interacts with a conformational epitope within a groove of adjacent coils of a trimeric pre-hairpin intermediate structure of the heptad repeat 1 (HR1) region of the ectodomain of gp41, wherein said conformational epitope comprises amino acids Leu568, Trp571 and Lys574 that occupy one or the other of the adjacent coils within the trimeric pre-hairpin structure and wherein said antibody inhibits HIV infection of a target cell in vitro, wherein said antibody comprises a heavy chain variable (V H ) region and a light chain variable (V L ) region, wherein said V H region and said V L region each comprise three complementarity determining regions (CDR) and four framework (FW) regions arranged from the NH 2 terminus to the COOH terminus as follows: FW1, CDR1, FW2, CDR2, FW3, CDR3, FW4, and wherein: (a) said V H CDR1 comprises amino acids 31-35 of SEQ ID NO:4; (b) said V H CDR2 comprises amino acids 50-66 of SEQ ID NO:4; (c) said V H CDR3 comprises amino acids 99-108 of SEQ ID NO:4; (d) said V L CDR1 comprises amino acids 31-35 of SEQ ID NO:6; (e) said V L CDR2 comprises amino acids 50-56 of SEQ ID NO:6; and, (f) said V L CDR3 comprises amino acids 89-97 of SEQ ID NO:6.