FIGURE 1.

HLA transgenic mice immunized with LF peptide pools comprising domain III generate HLA-DR restricted CD4+ T cell cryptic epitopes. Transgenic mice; DR1 (A,B), DR15 (C,D), and DR4 (E,F) were immunized with pools designed to only include non-overlapping LF peptides comprising domain III. Draining lymph node cells were cultured in an IFNγ specific ELISpot plate with 25 μg/ml of the individual domain III LF peptides for 72 h. Results are given as the number of spots above background (ΔSFC)/10⁶ PBMCs with mean ± SD (n = 3–5 mice for each column).