Table 1.

Stimulatory indices of expanded population of cells to individual canine distemper virus fusion protein (CDV-F) peptides

	Peptide pool used to select PBMCs from vaccinated dogs
	Dog 18		Dog 19		Dog 20		Dog 21
Peptide used in proliferation assay	1–94	21–40	1–94	21–40	1–94	21–40	1–94	21–40
p8*					3†		1·8
p10			2				1·5
p12					1·8
p22							4·8	5·7
p24		4·5					2·3	4·7
p25	2·3	4·2	5·4	6	15·2	2·4	6·3	7
p27		6·9	7·8	15·7	11·8	3	3·6	7·8
p29		3·6	6·3	7·9	5·6	3·5	7·1	13·8
p33			2·8	4·1		1·9	3·4	13·1
p35		4	3·8	2	6·7	1·8	3·9	5·9
p36	3	7·5	2·7	3	5		7·6	13·6
p37	1·7	2·7	1·5		4·1	1·5		3·2
p38		2·2					4·4	15
p39		3·2
p47			5·2		4·8
p62			8·8		4·6		4·3
p64			2·5		2·5
p68							9
p75	2·4						4·8

Beagle/foxhound dogs primed in vivo three times with Canvac 3 in 1 vaccine and once with heat-killed canine distemper virus (CDV) were bled 5 weeks after the last inoculation. Peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) were isolated and pulsed with a pool of peptides containing all 94 peptides, or with a pool containing peptides 21–40, and then cultured for 7 days to obtain an expanded population of peptide-specific cells. After the expansion step, viable cells were restimulated in vitro with individual peptides from the respective peptide pools in the presence of γ-irradiated autologous PBMC (10⁵) as a source of antigen-presenting cells (APC) and incubated for 7 days.

^*Peptides, 17 amino acids in length and overlapping by 10 residues, were used for the in vitro proliferation assay. Peptide 8 represents sequence 50–66 of CDV-F, peptide 10 sequence 64–80, etc. Only peptides to which the cells responded are tabulated here.

^†The results of proliferation assays are expressed as the stimulatory index (SI) and were calculated as the ratio of the counts of the antigen containing culture to medium control. SI values of ≥ 1·5 are shown.