Epitopes of the mycobacterial heat shock protein 65 for human T cells comprise different structures.
T cell recognition of foreign antigens is a result of a ternary complex between T cell receptor, nominal peptide and major histocompatibility complex molecule. It has been proposed that the nominal peptide, which is presented by accessory cells to T cells, has a characteristic structure which can be predicted on the basis of physicochemical criteria. To further study this aspect, we stimulated T cells from normal human blood donors with synthetic peptides (each of approximately 15 amino acids in length) from the heat shock protein 65 of Mycobacterium tuberculosis-M. bovis. We found that while the characterization of certain epitopes follows commonly used predictions, other epitopes cannot be predicted by known methods.
Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology, University of Ulm, Federal Republic of Germany.
M E
ME
Munk
T M
TM
Shinnick
S H
SH
Kaufmann
D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000942:Antigens, Bacterial / Q000235:genetics / Q000276:immunology*; D001426:Bacterial Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000276:immunology*; D000939:Epitopes / Q000138:chemical synthesis / Q000235:genetics / Q000276:immunology*; D006360:Heat-Shock Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000276:immunology*; D006801:Humans; D008213:Lymphocyte Activation; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D009169:Mycobacterium tuberculosis / Q000235:genetics / Q000276:immunology*; D010446:Peptide Fragments / Q000138:chemical synthesis / Q000276:immunology; D013601:T-Lymphocytes / Q000276:immunology*; D014376:Tuberculosis / Q000276:immunology
D000942:Antigens, Bacterial; D001426:Bacterial Proteins; D000939:Epitopes; D006360:Heat-Shock Proteins; D010446:Peptide Fragments