Investigating antibody affinity maturation during B cell exhaustion in viral infection

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During long-term infection the human immune system continually tries to get rid of the infectious agent without success. For example, during HIV infection which is life-long. One of the ways the immune system tries to overcome HIV is by producing antibodies that block the virus from entering new cells. However, HIV then rapidly mutates within the person and becomes resistant to their antibodies. Our immune system tries to keep up, and mutates the antibodies so that they can block the new version of HIV. This mutational arms race between antibodies and virus continues over many years. In some HIV+ individuals the result is highly-mutated antibodies but these are still unable to halt the virus. This is partly because the virus can mutate faster than the antibodies, but given the antibodies catch up repeatedly during infection it's likely the virus uses other tactics counteract human antibodies as a safeguard. I hypothesise that one of these tactics is to interfere with normal behaviour of the cells, called B cells, that make antibodies so that less antibody is present in the body to act against the virus. It is already known that during long-term infections some B cells become exhausted and can't complete the role they need to play in the body's defense. This exhaustion can be tested for in the laboratory by measuring the amount of particular proteins on the surface of individual B cells. Previously it was thought that these cells had no role in the ongoing immune response and were just casualties of the relentless infection. However, studies in malaria infection have shown that the exhausted B cells have the genetic blueprints for very highly-mutated antibodies against the parasite, suggesting they have participated in the same kind of mutational arms race between pathogen and antibodies seen in HIV infection. Therefore, I want to test whether highly-mutated antibodies that target HIV during long-term infection come from exhausted B cells. I also want to know if numbers of exhausted B cells increase at times in the mutational arms race when the virus gains the upper-hand. If this is true, then it would suggest a way to make antibodies more effective against HIV would be to re-invigorate the exhausted B cells and bring them back to a normal level of activity.