Eliciting unnatural immune responses by activating cryptic epitopes in viral antigens.

ABSTRACT: Antigenic variation in viral surface antigens is a strategy for escaping the host's adaptive immunity, whereas regions with pivotal functions for infection are less subject to antigenic variability. We hypothesized that genetically invariable and immunologically dormant regions of a viral surface antigen could be exposed to the host immune system and activated by rendering them susceptible to antigen-processing machinery in professional antigen-presenting cells (APCs). Considering the frequent antigen drift and shift in influenza viruses, we identified and used structural modeling to evaluate the conserved regions on the influenza hemagglutinin (HA) surface as potential epitopes. Mutant viruses containing the cleavage motifs of cathepsin S within HA were generated. Immunization of mice sho

SUBMITTER: Lee YJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6103170 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature