Human Mycobacterium tuberculosis CD8 T Cell Antigens/Epitopes Identified by a Proteomic Peptide Library.

Identification of CD8(+) T cell antigens/epitopes expressed by human pathogens with large genomes is especially challenging, yet necessary for vaccine development. Immunity to tuberculosis, a leading cause of mortality worldwide, requires CD8(+) T cell immunity, yet the repertoire of CD8 antigens/epitopes remains undefined. We used integrated computational and proteomic approaches to screen 10% of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) proteome for CD8 Mtb antigens.

T-cell epitope mapping in Mycobacterium tuberculosis using pepmixes created by micro-scale SPOT- synthesis.

Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) remains a major threat to human health worldwide. Although treatment of infection is an important part of tuberculosis control, an improved vaccine is essential for the elimination of this disease. Control of infection with Mtb is dependent on the cellular immune system, which in turn requires an understanding of those antigens that are capable of stimulating CD4+ and CD8+ T-cell responses.

High resolution radiographic and fine immunologic definition of TB disease progression in the rhesus macaque.

Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection in non-human primates parallels human tuberculosis, and provides a valuable vaccine evaluation model. However, this model is limited by the availability of real-time, non-invasive information regarding disease progression. Consequently, we have combined computed tomography scanning with enumeration of antigen-specific T cell responses.

Duplication of U3 sequences in the long terminal repeat of mink cell focus-inducing viruses generates redundancies of transcription factor binding sites important for the induction of thymomas.

The ability of mink cell focus-inducing (MCF) viruses to induce thymomas is determined, in part, by transcriptional enhancers in the U3 region of their long terminal repeats (LTRs). To elucidate sequence motifs important for enhancer function in vivo, we injected newborn mice with MCF 1dr (supF), a weakly pathogenic, molecularly tagged (supF) MCF virus containing only one copy of a sequence that is present as two copies (known as the directly repeated [DR] sequence) in the U3 region of MCF 247 and analyzed LTRs from supF-tagged proviruses in two resulting thymomas. Tagged proviruses integrated upstream and in the reverse transcriptional orientation relative to c-myc provided the focus of our studies.