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. 1989 Oct;84(4):1314–1319. doi: 10.1172/JCI114299

The preS1 antigen of hepatitis B virus is highly immunogenic at the T cell level in man.

C Ferrari 1, A Penna 1, A Bertoletti 1, A Cavalli 1, A Valli 1, C Schianchi 1, F Fiaccadori 1
PMCID: PMC329792  PMID: 2529268

Abstract

14 hepatitis B vaccine recipients who showed high titers of anti-hepatitis B surface antibodies in serum after booster immunization with a polyvalent hepatitis B surface antigen vaccine that contained trace amounts of hepatitis B virus (HBV) preS1 and preS2 envelope antigens were studied for their in vitro T cell response to these antigens. All 14 subjects displayed a significant proliferative T cell response to the S/p25 envelope region encoded polypeptide; 8 also responded to preS1, while only 1 showed a significant level of T cell proliferation to preS2. Limiting dilution analysis demonstrated that the frequency of preS-specific T cells in two of these vaccine recipients was higher than that of S/p25-specific T cells. T cell cloning was then performed and a total of 29 HBV envelope antigen-reactive CD4+ cloned lines were generated from two preS-responsive vaccines. 21 of these lines were S/p25 specific, 7 preS1 specific, and 1 preS2 specific. Taken together, all these results suggest that the preS1 antigen may function as a strong T cell immunogen in man.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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