Introduction: Therapeutic vaccination based on synthetic long peptides (SLP) containing both CD4+ and CD8+ T cell epitopes is a promising treatment strategy for chronic hepatitis B infection (cHBV).
Methods: We designed SLPs for three HBV proteins, HBcAg and the non-secreted proteins polymerase and X, and investigated their ability to induce T cell responses . A set of 17 SLPs was constructed based on viral protein conservation, functionality, predicted and validated binders for prevalent human leukocyte antigen (HLA) supertypes, validated HLA I epitopes, and chemical producibility.
Background And Aims: HEV infection is the most common cause of liver inflammation, but the pathogenic mechanisms remain largely unclear. We aim to explore whether HEV infection activates inflammasomes, crosstalk with antiviral interferon response, and the potential of therapeutic targeting.
Approach And Results: We measured IL-1β secretion, the hallmark of inflammasome activation, in serum of HEV-infected patients and rabbits, and in cultured macrophage cell lines and primary monocyte-derived macrophages.
Immunopeptidomics is used to identify novel epitopes for (therapeutic) vaccination strategies in cancer and infectious disease. Various false discovery rates (FDRs) are applied in the field when converting liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) spectra to peptides. Subsequently, large efforts have recently been made to rescue peptides of lower confidence.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHuman leukocyte antigen (HLA) molecules are essential for anti-tumor immunity, as they display tumor-derived peptides to drive tumor eradication by cytotoxic T lymphocytes. HLA molecules are primarily studied as peptide-loaded complexes on cell membranes (mHLA) and much less attention is given to their secretion as soluble HLA-peptide complexes (sHLA) into bodily fluids. Yet sHLA levels are altered in various pathologies including cancer, and are thus of high interest as biomarkers.
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