Article ID: JJID.2017.500
Adoptive transfer of virus-specific T cells has emerged as a promising therapeutic approach for treatment of virus infections in immunocompromised hosts. Characterization of virus-specific T cells provides essential information for the curative mechanism of the treatment. In this study, we developed a T cell epitope mapping system for 718 overlapping peptides spanning 6 viral proteins from three viruses (pp65 and IE1 from CMV; LMP1, EBNA1 and BZLF1 from EBV; Penton from AdV). PBMCs from 33 healthy Japanese donors were stimulated with these peptides and virus-specific CD4+ and CD8+ T cell were expanded in vitro in the presence of IL4 and IL7. A median of 13 (min-max, 2-46) peptides was recognized in the cohort. Both fresh and cryopreserved PBMCs were used for in vitro expansion, and the expansion and the breadth of T cell responses were not significantly different between them. We assessed viral regions frequently recognized by T cells in a Japanese cohort that could become pivotal T cell targets for immunotherapy in Japan. We tested epitope prediction for CD8+ T cell responses against common target region using freely available online tool, and some epitopes were considered to be predictive.
