An immunological hierarchy among three H-2Db-restricted cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) determinants in simian virus 40 (SV40) large T antigen (Tag) was described previously: determinants I and II/III are immunodominant, whereas determinant V is immunorecessive. To assess the immunogenicity of each determinant individually and define mechanisms that contribute to the immunorecessive nature of dete...

A pentadecapeptide (2F10 peptide) is capable of mimicking the group-specific "a" determinant of human hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) at both the B- and the T-cell level. This peptide represents a sequence on the heavy-chain hypervariable region of a monoclonal "internal image" anti-idiotype (anti-id 2F10) that has partial sequence homology to the "a" determinant epitope of HBsAg. To identi...

Whole-virus vaccines, including inactivated or live-attenuated influenza vaccines, have been conventionally developed and supported as a prophylaxis. These currently available virus-based influenza vaccines are widely used in the clinic, but the vaccine production takes a long time and a huge number of embryonated chicken eggs. To overcome the imperfection of egg-based influenza vaccines, epito...

Phage display was used to identify peptide mimics of an immunologically protective nematode glycan (CarLA) by screening a constrained C7C peptide library for ligands that bound to an anti-CarLA mAb (PAB1). Characterisation of these peptide mimotopes revealed functional similarities with an epitope that is defined by PAB1. Mimotope vaccinations of mice with three selected individual phage clones...

Antigen-induced peripheral tolerance is potentially one of the most efficient and specific therapeutic approaches for autoimmune diseases. Although highly effective in animal models, antigen-based strategies have not yet been translated into practicable human therapy, and several clinical trials using a single antigen or peptidic-epitope in multiple sclerosis (MS) yielded disappointing results....

Here, we report on the synthesis, conformational analysis, and autoantibody binding properties of new sets of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) specific biotin-peptide conjugates derived from filaggrin epitope peptides. The biotin with or without a linker was attached to the Cit or Arg containing epitope core ((311)TXGRS(315)) or epitope region ((306)SHQESTXGXSXGRSGRSGS(324)) peptide (where X = Cit), t...

Our previous work showed that the proteoglycan aggrecan can induce erosive polyarthritis and spondylitis in BALB/c mice, and that the G1 domain of the proteoglycan aggrecan (G1) is the arthritogenic region. In this study, two T cell epitopes residing on G1 within residues 70-84 (peptide G5) and 150-169 (peptide G9) were identified using synthetic peptides and aggrecan-specific T cell lines. Two...

18 Background: In rheumatoid arthritis (RA), anti-citrullinated protein/peptide antibodies (ACPAs) 19 are responsible for disease onset and progression, however, our knowledge is limited on ligand 20 binding affinities of autoantibodies with different citrulline-peptide specificity. 21 Methods: Citrulline-peptide specific ACPA IgGs were affinity purified and tested by ELISA. 22 Binding affiniti...

Phage display peptide libraries are widely used in various protein-protein interaction studies to determine the immunological binding of proteins and epitope mapping of different targets. In the present study, the peptide library is used to identify the Fab binding epitope site of Tetanus Toxoid (TT). The peptides were screened against Fab by biopanning, using a random peptide 12mer phage displ...

BACKGROUND In rheumatoid arthritis (RA), anti-citrullinated protein/peptide antibodies (ACPAs) are responsible for disease onset and progression, however, our knowledge is limited on ligand binding affinities of autoantibodies with different citrulline-peptide specificity. METHODS Citrulline-peptide-specific ACPA IgGs were affinity purified and tested by ELISA. Binding affinities of ACPA IgGs...