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Journal of Virology, April 2001, p. 3984-3987, Vol. 75, No. 8
Department of Molecular and Experimental
Medicine, The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, California
920371; Department of Medicine,
University of Pennsylvania and Philadelphia Veterans Administration
Medical Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
191042; and Epimmune, Inc., La Jolla,
California 921213
Received 30 November 2000/Accepted 16 January 2001
The recent identification of hepatitis B virus (HBV) epitopes
restricted by multiple HLA alleles has greatly expanded the epitope
repertoire available for T-cell-mediated therapeutic vaccine development. The HLA-B51-restricted peptide HBc19-27 is
particularly interesting because it is located entirely within the
HLA-A2-restricted HBc18-27 epitope. Here we show that
HLA-B51-restricted cytotoxic T lymphocytes specific for HBc19-27
from a patient with acute HBV infection were also able to lyse
HLA-B51-positive target cells pulsed with HBc18-27 and to produce
gamma interferon when stimulated by that peptide, implying that
HBc18-27 can be presented by HLA-B51 as well as by HLA-A2. These
results demonstrate the concept of degenerate immunogenicity across HLA
class supertype boundaries in a human viral disease setting. In
addition, they could facilitate the development of an epitope-based
therapeutic vaccine to terminate chronic HBV infection that could
provide a broad and diverse population coverage with a single peptide.
0022-538X/01/$04.00+0 DOI: 10.1128/JVI.75.8.3984-3987.2001
Copyright © 2001, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.
Degenerate Immunogenicity of an HLA-A2-Restricted Hepatitis B
Virus Nucleocapsid Cytotoxic T-Lymphocyte Epitope That Is Also
Presented by HLA-B51

*
Corresponding author. Mailing address: Department of
Molecular and Experimental Medicine, SBR-10, The Scripps Research
Institute, 10550 N. Torrey Pines Rd., La Jolla, CA 92037. Phone: (858)
784-8228. Fax: (858) 784-2960. E-mail address:
fchisari{at}scripps.edu.
Manuscript no. 13467-MEM from the Scripps Research Institute.
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