FIG. 6.

Epitope-specific CTLs are primed by endogenous Tag in irradiated SV11⁺ mice. SV11⁺ mice were irradiated at 450 rads at 40 days of age and then reconstituted with 5 × 10⁷ B6 (A to C) or SV11⁺ (D) spleen cells. Some mice remained unimmunized (C and D) or were immunized 2 days later with rVV-941T (A) or rVV-ES-IV (B) After 3 to 5 weeks, spleen cells were restimulated in vitro with B6/WT-19 cells and tested on day 6 in a ⁵¹Cr release assay against RMA target cells pulsed with 1 μM concentrations of the indicated peptides or the Tag-transformed cell lines B6/WT-19 (full-length Tag) and B6/K-1,4,5 (CTL epitope loss Tag). Data represent the response of individual mice from representative groups of three to five mice.