FIG. 4.

Antibody responses of 11 patients, A to K, to six HVR1 peptides of different clusters, I to V. Patients’ sera were obtained at month 18. The amino acid sequences of the six peptides used are as follows: I, FTRVTGGAQAVPTHGLTSLFTFGAQQN; II, RTLVMGGAATLTTRGRVSLFTFINSQR; III, ETKVMGGAQAPTTSGFTSLFALGSRQN; IV, NTYVTGGQAGYTTMALSSLFAPGAQQN; V(I), NTYTTGGQAGKTVSTFTSLFTLGASQN; V(K), NTYTSGGTAGKTVSTLTSLFTPGQSQN. The small Roman numerals under A, C, D, E, and H indicate the cluster numbers of minor isolates from each patient, and the large Roman numerals at the bottom indicate those of predominant isolates from each patient. The A₄₅₀ was estimated as the average ± standard deviation (error bar) of three independent experiments. Negative control values of the patients’ sera were 0.48 ± 0.13 (patient A), 0.46 ± 0.11 (patient B), 0.51 ± 0.13 (patient C), 0.53 ± 0.02 (patient D), 0.49 ± 0.09 (patient E), 0.47 ± 0.01 (patient F), 0.56 ± 0.07 (patient G), 0.50 ± 0.05 (patient H), 0.40 ± 0.16 (patient I), 0.48 ± 0.19 (patient J), and 0.52 ± 0.04 (patient K).