Two novel HLA-A*0201 T-cell epitopes in avian H5N1 viral nucleoprotein induced specific immune responses in HHD mice

• Published in: Veterinary Research
• Main Authors: Cheung, Ying-Kit, Cheng, Samuel Chak-Sum, Ke, Yan, Xie, Yong
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2010
• Subjects: influenza A virus; H5N1 nucleoprotein; HLA-A*0201 T-cell epitope; single-chain trimer; HHD transgenic mouse model; [SDV.BBM.BM]Life Sciences [q-bio]/Biochemistry; Molecular Biology/Molecular biology; [SDV.GEN.GA]Life Sciences [q-bio]/Genetics/Animal genetics; [SDV.BC]Life Sciences [q-bio]/Cellular Biology; [SDV.BC.IC]Life Sciences [q-bio]/Cellular Biology/Cell Behavior [q-bio.CB]; [SDV.MP]Life Sciences [q-bio]/Microbiology and Parasitology; [SDV.IMM]Life Sciences [q-bio]/Immunology; [SDV.NEU]Life Sciences [q-bio]/Neurons and Cognition [q-bio.NC]; [SDV.SPEE]Life Sciences [q-bio]/Santé publique et épidémiologie; [SDV.BA]Life Sciences [q-bio]/Animal biology; Avian flu
• Online Access: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00903154; https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00903154/document; https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00903154/file/hal-00903154.pdf; https://doi.org/10.1051/vetres/2009071

International audience The influenza A nucleoprotein (NP) is an attractive target for avian flu vaccine development because of its high conversancy in the evolutionary chain of the virus. Here we identified two novel HLA-A*0201 restricted NP epitopes, named H5N1 NP373-381 AMDSNTLEL (NP373) and NP458-466 FQGRGVFEL (NP458), using computational bioinformatic analysis. The NP peptides showed a high binding affinity to HLA-A*0201 on T2 cells, and were able to induce the activation of the cytotoxic T cells in the human peripheral blood mononuclear cells. We examined the potential of using NP373 and NP458 peptide sequences supplemented with a single-chain trimer as potential DNA vaccine candidates in an HHD transgenic mouse model. A gene gun delivery system was used for administrating the vaccine candidates into the animals. The results from cytotoxicity and ELISPOT assays indicated that a significant amount of IFN-γ was secreted by the T cells of the vaccinated mice, and the T cells were able to eliminate the corresponding peptide-loaded T2 cells. The discovery of these novel immunogenic NP peptides provides valuable information for avian flu vaccine design and construction.