title: Mechanisms of HIV protein degradation into epitopes: implications for vaccine design.
abstract: The degradation of HIV-derived proteins into epitopes displayed by MHC-I or MHC-II are the first events leading to the priming of HIV-specific immune responses and to the recognition of infected cells. Despite a wealth of information about peptidases involved in protein degradation, our knowledge of epitope presentation during HIV infection remains limited. Here we review current data on HIV protein degradation linking epitope production and immunodominance, viral evolution and impaired epitope presentation. We propose that an in-depth understanding of HIV antigen processing and presentation in relevant primary cells could be exploited to identify signatures leading to efficient or inefficient epitope presentation in HIV proteomes, and to improve the design of immunogens eliciting immune responses efficiently recognizing all infected cells.
authors.affiliation: Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT and Harvard, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA. Rucevic.Marijana@mgh.harvard.edu.
authors.forename: Marijana
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Rucevic
authors.affiliation: Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT and Harvard, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA. jnoucau@mgh.harvard.edu.
authors.forename: Julie
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Boucau
authors.affiliation: Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT and Harvard, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA. jdinter@mgh.harvard.edu.
authors.forename: Jens
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Dinter
authors.affiliation: Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT and Harvard, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA. gkourjian@mgh.harvard.edu.
authors.forename: Georgio
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Kourjian
authors.affiliation: Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT and Harvard, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA. sylvie_legall@hms.harvard.edu.
authors.forename: Sylvie
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Le Gall
mesh_terms: D016915:AIDS Vaccines / Q000276:immunology / Q000378:metabolism; D017951:Antigen Presentation; D000939:Epitopes / Q000276:immunology / Q000378:metabolism*; D006678:HIV / Q000276:immunology*; D015488:HIV Antigens / Q000276:immunology / Q000378:metabolism*; D054298:Human Immunodeficiency Virus Proteins / Q000276:immunology / Q000378:metabolism*; D006801:Humans; D059748:Proteolysis
chemical_list: D016915:AIDS Vaccines; D000939:Epitopes; D015488:HIV Antigens; D054298:Human Immunodeficiency Virus Proteins