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Visualizing Antigen Specific CD4+ T Cells using MHC Class II Tetramers
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A step-by-step overview of the dynamic process of epitope selection by major histocompatibility complex class II for

Scheherazade Sadegh-Nasseri1

  • 1Department of Pathology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland, 21205, USA.

F1000Research
|June 28, 2016
PubMed

T cell antigen receptors (TCRs) expressed on cytotoxic or helper T cells can only see their specific target antigen as short sequences of peptides bound to the groove of proteins of major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class I, and class II respectively. In addition to the many steps, several participating proteins, and multiple cellular compartments involved in the processing of antigens, the MHC structure, with its dynamic and flexible groove, has perfectly evolved as the underlying instrument for epitope selection. In this review, I have taken a step-by-step, and rather historical, view to describe antigen processing and determinant selection, as we understand it today, all based on decades of intense research by hundreds of laboratories.

Keywords:
Antigen Processing MachineryEpitope Mappingimmunodominance

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