Contemporary analysis of MHC-related immunodominance hierarchies in the CD8 T cell response to influenza A viruses

Abstract

Early studies of influenza virus-specific CD8+ T cell-mediated immunity indicated that the level of CTL activity associated with H2Db is greatly diminished in mice that also express H2K(k). Such MHC-related immunodominance hierarchies are of some interest, as they could lead to variable outcomes for peptide-based vaccination protocols in human populations. The influence of H2K(k) on the H2Db-restricted response profile has thus been looked at again using a contemporary, quantitative, IFN-γ-based flow cytometric assay. The depressive effect of H2K(k) was very apparent for the influenza DbPA224 epitope and was also reproduced when CTL activity was measured for H2Db-expressing targets pulsed wi..