The Journal of Experimental Medicine
Torrey Pines Biolabs
  Home | Help | Feedback | Subscriptions | Archive | Search | Table of Contents
This Article
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF, 187K)
Right arrow PPT slides of all figures
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Citation Map
Services
Right arrow Email this article
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new content in the JEM
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via HighWire
Right arrow Citing Articles via CrossRef
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Steven, N.M.
Right arrow Articles by Rickinson, A.B.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Steven, N.M.
Right arrow Articles by Rickinson, A.B.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Complore   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati  
What's this?

J. Exp. Med.
© The Rockefeller University Press
0022-1007/97/05/1605/14 $2.00
Volume 185, Number 9, May 5, 1997 1605-1618

Immediate Early and Early Lytic Cycle Proteins Are Frequent Targets of the Epstein-Barr Virus-induced Cytotoxic T Cell Response

By N.M. Steven,* N.E. Annels,* A. Kumar,* A.M. Leese,* M.G. Kurilla,Dagger and A.B. Rickinson*

From the * Cancer Research Campaign Institute for Cancer Studies, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, B15 2TT, U.K.; and the Dagger  Department of Pathology, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia 22908

Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), a human gamma -herpesvirus, can establish both nonproductive (latent) and productive (lytic) infections. Although the CD8+ cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) response to latently infected cells is well characterized, very little is known about T cell controls over lytic infection; this imbalance in our understanding belies the importance of virus-replicative lesions in several aspects of EBV disease pathogenesis. The present work shows that the primary CD8+ CTL response to EBV in infectious mononucleosis patients contains multiple lytic antigen-specific reactivities at levels at least as high as those seen against latent antigens; similar reactivities are also detectable in CTL memory. Clonal analysis revealed individual responses to the two immediate early proteins BZLF1 and BRLF1, and to three (BMLF1, BMRF1, and BALF2) of the six early proteins tested. In several cases, the peptide epitope and HLA-restricting determinant recognized by these CTLs has been defined, one unusual feature being the number of responses restricted through HLA-C alleles. The work strongly suggests that EBVreplicative lesions are subject to direct CTL control in vivo and that immediate early and early proteins are frequently the immunodominant targets. This contrasts with findings in alpha - and beta -herpesvirus systems (herpes simplex, cytomegalovirus) where viral interference with the antigen-processing pathway during lytic infection renders immediate early and early proteins much less immunogenic. The unique capacity of gamma -herpesvirus to amplify the viral load in vivo through a latent growth-transforming infection may have rendered these agents less dependent upon viral replication as a means of successfully colonizing their hosts.


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati    What's this?


This article has been cited by other articles:



  Home | Help | Feedback | Subscriptions | Archive | Search
TABLE OF CONTENTS