Figure A1.

Murine CD8⁺ T cell activation after vaccination with M51R and M51R-F vaccine vectors. Eight week-old mice were immunized intranasally with 5 × 10⁵ PFU of M51R or M51R-F, and VSV-specific CD8⁺ T cell responses in the spleen were measured at days 6, 8, 10 and 12 post-vaccination. Splenocytes were re-stimulated in vitro with peptides corresponding to an immunodominant N protein epitope for CD8⁺ T cells or G protein epitope for CD4⁺ T cells. Intracellular cytokine staining and flow cytometry were used to measure T cell activation. Points shown are the percentage of cytokine-producing T cells within the CD8⁺ CD44 high splenic population for individual mice. The lines (solid, M51R; dotted, M51R-F) indicate the mean of 9 mice (6 days and 8 days) or 6 mice (10 days and 12 days) per vaccination group. (A) IFNγ-producing cells (B) TNFα-producing cells. No significant differences were found between the 2 groups at any time point except for day 10 (indicated by a *), in which vaccination with M51R induced a greater IFNγ response than did M51R-F (p < 0.05, Student’s t-test).