Confronting complexity: real-world immunodominance in antiviral CD8+ T cell responses.
Antiviral CD8(+) T cells respond to only a minute fraction of the potential peptide determinants encoded by viral genomes. Immunogenic determinants can be ordered into highly reproducible hierarchies based on the magnitude of cognate CD8(+) T cell responses. Until recently, this phenomenon, termed immunodominance, was largely defined and characterized in model systems utilizing a few strains of inbred mice infected with a handful of viruses with limited coding capacity. Here, I review work that has extended immunodominance studies to viruses of greater complexity and to the real world of human antiviral immunity.
Yewdell
Jonathan W
JW
Laboratory of Viral Diseases, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Bethesda, Maryland 20892, USA. jyewdell@nih.gov
D000818:Animals; D000956:Antigens, Viral / Q000235:genetics / Q000276:immunology*; D018414:CD8-Positive T-Lymphocytes / Q000276:immunology*; D006801:Humans; D016056:Immunodominant Epitopes / Q000235:genetics / Q000276:immunology*; D051379:Mice; D014777:Virus Diseases / Q000276:immunology*; D014780:Viruses / Q000235:genetics / Q000276:immunology*
D000956:Antigens, Viral; D016056:Immunodominant Epitopes