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.
Munk
M E
ME
Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology, University of Ulm, Federal Republic of Germany.
Shinnick
T M
TM
Kaufmann
S H
SH
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