HUMAN CYTOTOXIC T LYMPHOCYTE RESPONSES TO EPSTEIN-BARR VIRUS INFECTION

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
▪ Abstract Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) provides one of the most informative systems with which to study cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) responses in humans. The virus establishes a highly immunogenic growth-transforming infection of B lymphocytes, associated with the coordinate expression of six virus-coded nuclear antigens (EBNAs 1, 2, 3A, 3B, 3C, -LP) and two latent membrane proteins (LMPs 1 and 2). This elicits both primary and memory CT8+ CTL responses that are markedly skewed toward HLA allele-specific epitopes drawn from the EBNA3A, 3B, 3C subset of latent proteins, with reactivities to other antigens being generally much less frequent. This heirarchy of immunodominance among the different latent proteins may at least partly reflect their differential accessibility to the HLA class I–processing pathway. Furthermore, CTLs to some of the immunodominant epitopes involve highly conserved T cell receptor (TCR) usage, a level of focusing which evidence suggests could have immunopathological consequences from cr...

This publication has 143 references indexed in Scilit: