Contrasting Epstein - Barr virus-specific cytotoxic T cell responses to HLA A2-restricted epitopes in humans and HLA transgenic mice: Implications for vaccine design

Abstract

This study investigates the hierarchy of cytotoxic T cell (CTL) responses to twelve HLA A2-restricted epitopes from the latent, lytic and structural proteins of Epstein - Barr virus (EBV) in acute infectious mononucleosis and in healthy seropositive donors and the relative immunogenecity of these epitopes in transgenic mice. Responses to the lytic epitope were uniformly strong in all healthy seropositive individuals and acute infectious mononucleosis donors while moderate or low responses were observed to the latent and structural epitopes, respectively in both groups studied. In contrast, when HLA A2/Kb transgenic mice were immunised with these peptide epitopes, CTL responses were observed ..