Despite the evident existence of a conformationally correct, solvent-exposed CD4BDcore on the surface of gp120 (Nishiyama et al., 2009; Planque et al., 2010), immunization with this protein does not induce a robust adaptive anti-CD4BDcore antibody response (Sun et al., 1989; Kelker et al., 2010), and these antibodies are also poorly represented in the antibody response to HIV infection (Planque et al., 2010). The gene discussed is ITIH4; the disease is HIV infectious disease.