Epitope specific T‐cell responses against influenza A in a healthy population

Citations Over TimeTop 10% of 2015 papers

Abstract

Pre-existing human CD4(+) and CD8(+) T-cell-mediated immunity may be a useful correlate of protection against severe influenza disease. Identification and evaluation of common epitopes recognized by T cells with broad cross-reactivity is therefore important to guide universal influenza vaccine development, and to monitor immunological preparedness against pandemics. We have retrieved an optimal combination of MHC class I and class II restricted epitopes from the Immune Epitope Database (www.iedb.org), by defining a fitness score function depending on prevalence, sequence conservancy and HLA super-type coverage. Optimized libraries of CD4(+) and CD8(+) T-cell epitopes were selected from influenza antigens commonly present in seasonal and pandemic influenza strains from 1934 to 2009. These epitope pools were used to characterize human T-cell responses in healthy donors using interferon-γ ELISPOT assays. Upon stimulation, significant CD4(+) and CD8(+) T-cell responses were induced, primarily recognizing epitopes from the conserved viral core proteins. Furthermore, the CD4(+) and CD8(+) T cells were phenotypically characterized regarding functionality, cytotoxic potential and memory phenotype using flow cytometry. Optimized sets of T-cell peptide epitopes may be a useful tool to monitor the efficacy of clinical trials, the immune status of a population to predict immunological preparedness against pandemics, as well as being candidates for universal influenza vaccines.

Related Papers

• → Epitope Mapping of Human Polyclonal Antibodies to the fHbp Antigen of a Neisseria Meningitidis Vaccine by Hydrogen-Deuterium Exchange Mass Spectrometry (HDX-MS)(2024)11 cited
• → Epitope Mapping of Neutralizing Monoclonal Antibodies to Human Interferon-γ Using Human-Bovine Interferon-γ Chimeras(2016)8 cited
• → Research Progress on the Epitope Mapping Technology for Food Allergens(2010)1 cited
• → Epitope mapping(1994)7 cited
• → Epitope Mapping(1998)2 cited