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Updated: Jul 8, 2026

Peptide:MHC Tetramer-based Enrichment of Epitope-specific T cells
Published on: October 22, 2012
V3 CTL epitope density in a single recombinant molecule antigen differentially affects the number and activity of
1Laboratory of Immunology, Department of Biology and Institute of Biomedical Science, Tsinghua University, Protein Science Laboratory of the MOE, Beijing 100084, PR China. chenyh@mail.tsinghua.edu.cn
Abstract:
Previous studies have found the close correlation between epitope density and epitope-specific response, which have shown that high epitope density in a single recombinant protein molecule significantly enhances the humoral response and protective immunity. However, it has not been determined whether this kind of high epitope density could also significantly influence T cell response. Based on this, a series of recombinant DNA and proteins were designed and prepared. Each molecule consists of various copy numbers of the V3 CTL epitope on HIV-1 gp120 (one, two, four and eight copies). Our results show clearly that different V3-epitope densities in just one single DNA or protein molecules have respectively different effects on the number and activity of both primary and memory T cells. Interestingly, this effect is more complex than that on the B cells: epitope density in one plasmid or protein antigen affects the number, not the cytotoxic avidity, of primary CD8+ T cells, but affects both the number and cytotoxic avidity of memory CD8+ T cells. It indicates epitope density in the antigen is an important consideration to optimize T cell response induction and may facilitate the development of effective T cell-based anti-virus vaccines.
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