Kinetics of antigen expression and epitope presentation during virus infection.

ABSTRACT: Current knowledge about the dynamics of antigen presentation to T cells during viral infection is very poor despite being of fundamental importance to our understanding of anti-viral immunity. Here we use an advanced mass spectrometry method to simultaneously quantify the presentation of eight vaccinia virus peptide-MHC complexes (epitopes) on infected cells and the amounts of their source antigens at multiple times after infection. The results show a startling 1000-fold range in abundance as well as strikingly different kinetics across the epitopes monitored. The tight correlation between onset of protein expression and epitope display for most antigens provides the strongest support to date that antigen presentation is largely linked to translation and not later degradation of antigens.

SUBMITTER: Croft NP 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3561264 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature