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. 2001 Dec 1;108(11):1677–1685. doi: 10.1172/JCI13463

Figure 1.

Figure 1

Epitope enhancement of Th epitope in Th-CTL peptide vaccine construct elicits enhanced CTL response. (a) BALB/c mice were immunized subcutaneously with 20 nmol native vaccine construct PCLUS 3-18IIIB or construct with the modified helper epitope PCLUS 3(A)-18IIIB. Spleen cells were restimulated in vitro 14 days later with irradiated P18IIIB-pulsed syngeneic spleen cells, and 7 days later tested in a 51Cr-release assay on P815 targets pulsed with 0.5 μM P18IIIB. Open symbols represent nonspecific lysis of target cells without peptide. Curves are significantly different at α = 0.001 by Tukey multiple comparison test. (b) Draining lymph node cells from immunized animals were stimulated 4 days with P18IIIB and stained with anti-CD8 and P18-I10/H-2Dd tetramer. (c) Draining lymph node cells from immunized animals were tested immediately ex vivo without in vitro stimulation 3 days after immunization, in a 5-hour CTL assay. (d) Animals were challenged intraperitoneally with different doses of vPE16 14 days after two immunizations (primary immunization subcutaneously and boost intraperitoneally 14 days later). Four days after challenge, viral titers in homogenized ovary tissue were determined. Each column represents the mean of three mice.