The aim of this article is to present the attempts of immunization against HIV-1 with the use of protein products of the env gene. Newly elaborated techniques allowed replacing traditional vaccination methods, ineffective in case of highly variable HIV-1 virus and investigating alternative solutions such as: immunization with the use of recombinant viruses as vectors or "naked" DNA. The results of these studies are promising and indicate the way to solve this problem.

In this article the mode of infection with HIV-1 virus and the role of glycoprotein 120 (gp120) in this process were described. The gp120 is responsible for a number of phenomena resulting from HIV-1 infection. Against the epitopes of gp120 humoral and cellular responses develop. However, because of a high variability of this protein, caused by mutations, in the process of infection these responses become ineffective. Moreover, gp120, as revealed from numerous studies, causes a decrease in the number of peripheral blood CD4+ T lymphocytes, both infected and uninfected.