Claire Danielle Fernandes

Ms. Claire Danielle Fernandes


Research Focus & Metrics

Academic Career Length

3Years (2024-Present)

(Calculated once Scilit publication data is synced: current year − year of first publication + 1)

Representative Publications

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9 June 2024 in Viruses
Verified
Journal Article
Open access
PDF file
JBJonathan Burnie
Jonathan Burnie
CFClaire Danielle Fernandes
Claire Danielle Fernandes
APAyushi Patel
Ayushi Patel
APArvin Tejnarine Persaud
Arvin Tejnarine Persaud
DCDeepa Chaphekar
Deepa Chaphekar
Christina GuzzoChristina Guzzo
Christina Guzzo
The HIV envelope glycoprotein (Env) is a trimeric protein that facilitates viral binding and fusion with target cells. As the sole viral protein on the HIV surface, Env is important both for immune responses to HIV and in vaccine designs. Targeting Env in clinical applications is challenging due to its heavy glycosylation, high genetic variability, conformational camouflage, and its low abundance on virions. Thus, there is a critical need to better understand this protein. Flow virometry (FV) is a useful methodology for phenotyping the virion surface in a high-throughput, single virion manner. To demonstrate the utility of FV to characterize Env, we stained HIV virions with a panel of 85 monoclonal antibodies targeting different regions of Env. A broad range of antibodies yielded robust staining of Env, with V3 antibodies showing the highest quantitative staining. A subset of antibodies tested in parallel on viruses produced in CD4+ T cell lines, HEK293T cells, and primary cells showed that the cellular model of virus production can impact Env detection. Finally, in addition to being able to highlight Env heterogeneity on virions, we show FV can sensitively detect differences in Env conformation when soluble CD4 is added to virions before staining.