An in vitro human cell-based assay to rank the relative immunogenicity of proteins.

A method to rank proteins based on their relative immunogenicity has been devised. A statistical analysis of peptide-specific responses in large human donor pools provides a structure index value metric that ranked four industrial enzymes in the order determined by both mouse and guinea pig exposure models. The ranking method also compared favorably with human sensitization rates measured in occupationally exposed workers.

Human population-based identification of CD4(+) T-cell peptide epitope determinants.

A human cell-based method to identify functional CD4(+) T-cell epitopes in any protein has been developed. Proteins are tested as synthetic 15-mer peptides offset by three amino acids. Percent responses within a large donor population are tabulated for each peptide in the set.