Identification of a west nile virus cd4 t cell epitope and use thereof
AssigneesDepartment of Health and Human Services, The Government of the United States of America as represented by the Secretary of the
InventorsGwong-Jen J. Chang, Holly R. Hughes
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Abstract
Described herein is the identification and of a potent West Nile virus (WNV) CD4 positive T cell epitope and its use for increasing the immunogenicity of heterologous flavivirus vaccines, such as dengue virus type 2 (DENV-2) DNA and virus-like particle (VLP) vaccines. Also described are methods for the identification of potent T cell epitopes to enhance immunogenicity of multivalent vaccines.
Claims20
An isolated mutant flavivirus E-glycoprotein polypeptide, wherein the polypeptide comprises an isoleucine at position 474, a threonine at position 484, a valine at position 488 and a leucine at position 493, each numbered with reference to the West Nile virus E-glycoprotein polypeptide sequence of SEQ ID NO:
- 38, wherein the flavivirus is not West Nile virus.
A method of selecting a T cell epitope to enhance immunogenicity of a multivalent vaccine, wherein at least one component of the multivalent vaccine induces a weaker immune response compared with another component of the multivalent vaccine that induces a stronger immune response, the method comprising:
- (i) performing peptide scanning on the vaccine components to identify positive CD4 T cell epitopes or positive CD8 T cell epitopes, or both;
- (ii) comparing the positive T cell epitopes from the weaker vaccine component to the positive T cell epitopes from the stronger vaccine component to identify a candidate T cell epitope from the stronger vaccine component;
- and
- (iii) evaluating the ability of the candidate T cell epitope to bind human HLA alleles, wherein the candidate T cell epitope is selected if it is capable of binding to multiple different HLA alleles.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.