CD4+ T-cell epitope determination using unexposed human donor peripheral blood mononuclear cells

The engineering of protein therapeutics to improve their stability, their efficacy, or to create "humanized" versions introduces changes to the amino acid sequence that are potential T-cell epitopes. Until now, there has been no available assay to detect primary T-cell responses to novel epitopes in humans. Currently available in vitro protocols for epitope determination rely on peripheral blood lymphocytes from environmentally exposed or disease-bearing donors. This severely limits the opportunity to confirm T-cell epitopes in novel proteins, because exposed donors are not available to novel or engineered proteins. Other methods for determining T-cell epitopes are either computer-modeled predictions based on potential binding to HLA molecules or the identification of peptides presented by HLA molecules removed from the surface of tumor cells or protein-pulsed antigen-presenting cells. Because HLA binding is necessary, but not sufficient, for T-cell responses, these methods must be validated by in vitro presentation assays. The authors describe a dendritic cell-based assay that identifies CD4+ T-cell epitopes in novel proteins using unexposed donors. Predicted T-cell epitopes in the protein of interest were confirmed using cells from two verified exposed donors. The major CD4+ T-cell epitope of the novel protein examined in this study associated with the expression of HLA DRb1*15. This assay reflects de novo priming in vitro, and it accurately identifies primary T-cell epitopes. This assay is a powerful tool for determining relevant immunostimulatory T-cell epitopes for all types of immunoregulatory applications.