Relationship between Poor Immunogenicity of HLA-A2-Restricted Peptide Epitopes and Paucity of Naive CD8+ T-Cell Precursors in HLA-A2-Transgenic Mice.
- Author:
Yoon Seok CHOI
1
;
Dong Ho LEE
;
Eui Cheol SHIN
Author Information
- Publication Type:Brief Communication
- Keywords: CD8+ T cells; T cell immunogenicity; T cell epitope; Major histocompatibility complex class I; HLA-A2; Naive T cell precursor
- MeSH: Animals; Epitopes*; Epitopes, T-Lymphocyte; Hepacivirus; HLA-A2 Antigen; Humans; Immunization; Mice*; Precursor Cells, T-Lymphoid*; T-Lymphocytes; Vaccinia virus
- From:Immune Network 2014;14(4):219-225
- CountryRepublic of Korea
- Language:English
- Abstract: We examined the immunogenicity of H-2 class I-restricted and HLA-A2-restricted epitopes through peptide immunization of HLA-A2-transgenic mice that also express mouse H-2 class I molecules. All four of the tested epitopes restricted by H-2 class I robustly elicited T-cell responses, but four of seven epitopes restricted by HLA-A2 did not induce T-cell responses, showing that HLA-A2-restricted peptide epitopes tend to be poorly immunogenic in HLA-A2-transgenic mice. This finding was confirmed in HLA-A2-transgenic mice infected with a recombinant vaccinia virus expressing hepatitis C virus proteins. We examined the precursor frequency of epitope-specific naive CD8+ T cells in HLA-A2-transgenic and conventional C57BL/6 mice and found that the poor immunogenicity of HLA-A2-restricted peptide epitopes is related to the paucity of naive CD8+ T-cell precursors in HLA-A2-transgenic mice. These results provide direction for the improvement of mouse models to study epitope repertoires and the immunodominance of human T-cell responses.
