ITIH4 and malaria: Thus, a N-terminal truncated VACV 14K protein (1–28 aa, to remove the GAG binding domain) was fused to the C-terminus of a clade B HIV-1 gp120 protein (from isolate BX08), generating the HIV-1 gp120-14K protein (Fig 1A), in a similar fashion to what we reported previously for a malaria antigen [26].