Functional Relevance of Improbable Antibody Mutations for HIV Broadly Neutralizing Antibody Development (Cell Host & Microbe)

Not all mutations during B cell affinity maturation are equally probable. Wiehe et al. show that HIV-1 broadly neutralizing antibodies (bnAbs) are enriched with low-probability mutations and that these improbable mutations are often critical for HIV-1 bnAb neutralization breadth, thus making improbable mutations key targets for selection with vaccines.