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Journal of Virology, July 2003, p. 7330-7340, Vol. 77, No. 13
0022-538X/03/$08.00+0     DOI: 10.1128/JVI.77.13.7330-7340.2003
Copyright © 2003, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Enhanced Detection of Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1-Specific T-Cell Responses to Highly Variable Regions by Using Peptides Based on Autologous Virus Sequences

Marcus Altfeld,1* Marylyn M. Addo,1 Raj Shankarappa,2 Paul K. Lee,1 Todd M. Allen,1 Xu G. Yu,1 Almas Rathod,1 Jason Harlow,1 Kristin O'Sullivan,1 Mary N. Johnston,1 Philip J. R. Goulder,1,3 James I. Mullins,4 Eric S. Rosenberg,1 Christian Brander,1 Bette Korber,5 and Bruce D. Walker1

Partners AIDS Research Center and Infectious Disease Unit, Massachusetts General Hospital, and Division of AIDS, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts,1 Center for Genomic Sciences, Allegheny-Singer Research Institute, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,2 Department of Paediatrics, Nuffield Department of Medicine, Oxford, United Kingdom,3 Department of Microbiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington,4 Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico5

Received 31 January 2003/ Accepted 1 April 2003

The antigenic diversity of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) represents a significant challenge for vaccine design as well as the comprehensive assessment of HIV-1-specific immune responses in infected persons. In this study we assessed the impact of antigen variability on the characterization of HIV-1-specific T-cell responses by using an HIV-1 database to determine the sequence variability at each position in all expressed HIV-1 proteins and a comprehensive data set of CD8 T-cell responses to a reference strain of HIV-1 in infected persons. Gamma interferon Elispot analysis of HIV-1 clade B-specific T-cell responses to 504 overlapping peptides spanning the entire expressed HIV-1 genome derived from 57 infected subjects demonstrated that the average amino acid variability within a peptide (entropy) was inversely correlated to the measured frequency at which the peptide was recognized (P = 6 x 10-7). Subsequent studies in six persons to assess T-cell responses against p24 Gag, Tat, and Vpr peptides based on autologous virus sequences demonstrated that 29% (12 of 42) of targeted peptides were only detected with peptides representing the autologous virus strain compared to the HIV-1 clade B consensus sequence. The use of autologous peptides also allowed the detection of significantly stronger HIV-1-specific T-cell responses in the more variable regulatory and accessory HIV-1 proteins Tat and Vpr (P = 0.007). Taken together, these data indicate that accurate assessment of T-cell responses directed against the more variable regulatory and accessory HIV-1 proteins requires reagents based on autologous virus sequences. They also demonstrate that CD8 T-cell responses to the variable HIV-1 proteins are more common than previously reported.


* Corresponding author. Mailing address: MGH-East, CNY 5212, 149 13th St., Charlestown, MA 02129. Phone: (617) 724-8332. Fax: (617) 726-4691. E-mail: maltfeld{at}partners.org.


Journal of Virology, July 2003, p. 7330-7340, Vol. 77, No. 13
0022-538X/03/$08.00+0     DOI: 10.1128/JVI.77.13.7330-7340.2003
Copyright © 2003, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.




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Copyright © 2003 by the American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.