Enhancing immunogenicity by limiting susceptibility to lysosomal proteolysis.

ABSTRACT: T cells recognize protein antigens as short peptides processed and displayed by antigen-presenting cells. However, the mechanism of peptide selection is incompletely understood, and, consequently, the differences in the immunogenicity of protein antigens remain largely unpredictable and difficult to manipulate. In this paper we show that the susceptibility of protein antigens to lysosomal proteolysis plays an important role in determining immunogenicity in vivo. We compared the immunogenicity of proteins with the same sequence (same T cell epitopes) and structure (same B cell epitopes) but with different susceptibilities to lysosomal proteolysis. After immunizing mice with each of the proteins adsorbed onto aluminum hydroxide as adjuvant, we measured serum IgG responses as a physiological

SUBMITTER: Delamarre L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2118388 | biostudies-literature | 2006 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature