title: Immune specificity of murine T-cell lines to the major outer membrane protein of Chlamydia trachomatis.
abstract: The antigenically variant Chlamydia trachomatis major outer membrane protein (MOMP) is a target of antibody-mediated neutralization in vitro, and it is an important protein for designing a subunit vaccine. Knowledge of MOMP T-cell determinants will be essential to elicit rapid and strong immune responses following an encounter with infectious organisms. C. trachomatis-specific T-cell lines were derived from MOMP-immunized BALB/c mice and selected with intact organisms. We used these short-term T-cell lines to identify determinants of MOMP that could be recognized by T cells following processing of the intact organism. T-cell line proliferation in response to overlapping MOMP peptides showed that only a peptide encompassing the third variable segment (VS3) elicited a strong proliferative response. We further mapped determinants within the VS3 peptide and found that a sequence-conserved portion of the VS3 peptide elicited T-cell proliferation of T-cell lines from BALB/c mice. Thus, unlike the response to several MOMP peptides with unselected T cells, development of short-term T-cell lines with intact organisms restricted the repertoire of antigens capable of being recognized by MOMP-specific T cells.
authors.affiliation: Department of Ophthalmology, Dokkyo University School of Medicine, Tochigi, Japan.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ishizaki
authors.forename: J E
authors.initials: JE
authors.lastname: Allen
authors.forename: P R
authors.initials: PR
authors.lastname: Beatty
authors.forename: R S
authors.initials: RS
authors.lastname: Stephens
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D001425:Bacterial Outer Membrane Proteins / Q000276:immunology*; D001483:Base Sequence; D002460:Cell Line; D002692:Chlamydia trachomatis / Q000276:immunology*; D005260:Female; D008213:Lymphocyte Activation; D051379:Mice; D008807:Mice, Inbred BALB C; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010446:Peptide Fragments / Q000276:immunology; D013601:T-Lymphocytes / Q000276:immunology*
chemical_list: D001425:Bacterial Outer Membrane Proteins; D010446:Peptide Fragments