However, a disease- and autoantibody-dependent modulation of trogocytosis is observed in infection and autoimmunity: chronic HIV-1 infection elicits anti-Env antibodies that autoreact to epitopes on the surface of CD4 T cells that can boost this receptor transfer, and the analysis of HIV patient sera and a number of bNAbs suggests that the level of surface autoreactivity correlates with the ability to foster trogocytosis. The gene discussed is ERVW-1; the disease is infection.