Figure 4. rAAV-induced CD8⁺ T cells are lytic.

(A) In an in vivo killing assay, splenocytes harvested from naive BALB/c mice were either pulsed with the gag AMQMLKETI peptide and stained with 0.5 μM CFSE or pulsed with an irrelevant peptide and stained with 5 μM CFSE, then adoptively transferred via tail vein injection into BALB/c mice that were nonimmunized or immunized with 10¹¹ gc rAAV2/7gag or 10¹⁰ vp AdC68gag 2 months prior to the transfer. At 24 hours after the transfer, splenocytes and peripheral blood lymphocytes were harvested from recipient mice and analyzed by flow cytometry. Levels of CFSE expression are shown. (B) In the muscle imaging study, mice were immunized with 10¹¹ gc rAAV2/7GFP in the left leg and 27 days later immunized with 10¹¹ vp AdC68GFP in the right leg; control mice received either rAAV2/7GFP only or AdC68GFP only (n = 3–4 per group). At 24 hours and 47 days after the AdC68GFP immunization, mice were killed and legs were removed for imaging.