Journal of General Virology, Vol 80, 1609-1615, Copyright © 1999 by Society for General Microbiology
Characterization of T cell epitopes in measles virus nucleoprotein
J Marttila, J Ilonen, E Norrby and A Salmi
Turku Immunology Centre and Department of Virology, University of Turku, Kiinamyllynkatu 13, FIN-20520 Turku, Finland
T cell epitopes of the measles virus (MV) nucleoprotein were studied by
synthesizing overlapping 20 aa peptides over the known sequence of the
protein and analysing the proliferation responses of a panel of MV-specific
T cell lines and clones against these peptides. T cell lines were
established from eleven healthy controls and seven multiple sclerosis
patients, all with a history of past MV infection. The epitopes recognized
by these lines were concentrated in a few regions of the polypeptide chain.
Overlapping peptides containing aa 321--340 and 331--350 were most often
recognized. Other epitopes were detected close to the amino-terminal end of
the polypeptide chain as each of the peptides 1--20, 21--40, 31--50 and
51--70 contained stimulating moieties. Some responses were also detected
towards peptides 151--200 and 221--250, but the carboxy-terminal end of the
polypeptide was not recognized by any of the tested T cell lines. The amino
acid sequences of the peptides that stimulated the T cell clones and lines,
as a rule, contained binding motifs described for HLA-DR alleles found in T
cell donors. The regions of protein sequence which did not reveal any T
cell epitopes were, instead, relatively free of binding motifs. The results
suggest that only a few epitopes of the MV nucleoprotein are important in
establishing T cell immunity.
