Coccidioides immitis fractions which are antigenic for immune T lymphocytes

The principal mechanism of resistance to coccidioidomycosis in experimental animals has been reported to be T-cell-mediated immunity. We have generated a Coccidioides immitis antigen-specific murine T-cell line to identify specific macromolecules capable of eliciting an immune mouse T-cell proliferative response. The murine T cells were stimulated in vitro with a soluble conidial wall fraction (SCWF), which has been previously characterized by humoral and cellular immunoassays. The SCWF was separated by sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and electrotransferred to a nitrocellulose membrane, and the stained blot was cut into seven pieces based on the molecular size of the SCWF components. The nitrocellulose membrane strips were converted into antigen-bearing particles and tested in a T-cell proliferation assay. Antigenic components of the SCWF in the molecular size range of 43 to 66 kDa were identified as the most immunoreactive. In a parallel study, we used a cDNA expression library derived from mRNA of the mycelial phase of C. immitis, which was constructed in lambda gt11 to identify clones that encoded T-cell-reactive fusion proteins (FPs). The cDNA library was screened by using anti-SCWF rabbit serum, and the FPs expressed in Escherichia coli were isolated and tested for T-cell response in the same manner as the SCWF components. The nucleotide sequence of a 0.2-kb cDNA insert encoding a protein which elicited vigorous T-cell response was determined. The isolated cDNA insert hybridized to a single 1.9-kb mRNA band in a Northern blot of the total RNA fraction of the mycelial phase of C. immitis. Antibody with affinity for the T-cell-reactive FP was isolated from anti-SCWF rabbit serum by solid-phase immunoadsorption. The FP-specific antibody reacted with a 47-kDa polypeptide in Western blots (immunoblots) of the SCWF. The same antibody preparation was used for immunoelectron microscopy to show that the FP was localized in the walls of arthroconidia and spherules of C. immitis. Attempts to clone and sequence the entire gene which encodes the T-cell-reactive protein are under way. The results of this study should lead to the determination of the complete structure of an important T-cell-stimulating antigen of C. immitis.