Differential sensitivities of primary and secondary T cell responses to antigen structure

Here we examined T cell responses to two analogs of a chimeric peptide encoding a known B and a known T cell epitope. In one of the analogs, the B cell epitope existed in a random conformation whereas it was restricted within a disulfide-bonded cyclic loop in the other. Immunization of these peptides in mice revealed that the latter peptide was significantly poorer at priming T cells and our preliminary results suggest this could be the result of differential processing of the two analogs. While primary T cell responses were sensitive to the influence of conformation, secondary responses were not discriminatory for the two antigens confirming the differences in activation requirements for primary and secondary T cell responses. Further, our studies also suggest that the priming efficacy of a T cell epitope is influenced by its structural environment.