@article{8d0ad4d34de44e109f8517ddaf5f42a8,
title = "Towards an immunosense vaccine to prevent toxoplasmosis: Protective Toxoplasma gondii epitopes restricted by HLA-A*0201",
abstract = "The ideal vaccine to protect against toxoplasmosis in humans would include antigens that elicit a protective T helper cell type 1 immune response, and generate long-lived IFN-γ-producing CD8+ T cells. Herein, we utilized a predictive algorithm to identify candidate HLA-A02 supertype epitopes from Toxoplasma gondii proteins. Thirteen peptides elicited production of IFN-γ from PBMC of HLA-A02 supertype persons seropositive for T. gondii infection but not from seronegative controls. These peptides displayed high-affinity binding to HLA-A02 proteins. Immunization of HLA-A*0201 transgenic mice with these pooled peptides, with a universal CD4+ epitope peptide called PADRE, formulated with adjuvant GLA-SE, induced CD8+ T cell IFN-γ production and protected against parasite challenge. Peptides identified in this study provide candidates for inclusion in immunosense epitope-based vaccines.",
keywords = "HLA-A2 epitope, Toxoplasma gondii, Vaccine",
author = "Hua Cong and Mui, {Ernest J.} and Witola, {William H.} and John Sidney and Jeff Alexander and Alessandro Sette and Ajesh Maewal and Rima McLeod",
note = "Funding Information: We thank C. Oseroff for helpful suggestions, P. Terasaki for HLA-typing, J. Boothroyd and S. Kim for the luciferase expressing parasite, S. Reed, T. Vedvick and IDRI for the GLA-SE adjuvant, and families and collaborating physicians/scientists in the NCCCTS who made this work possible. We thank J. McCammon, M. Sautter and M. Dean-Carpentier for assistance in preparing this manuscript. We gratefully acknowledge support of this work by gifts from the Fin Charity Trust, R. Blackfoot, R. Thewind, A. Akfortseven, S. Gemma, S. Jackson, A.K. Bump, the Rooney Aldens, the Dominique Cornwell and Peter Mann Family Foundation, the Morel, Rosenstein, Kapnick, Taub, Daley-Conroy, Munroe, Schilling and Kiewit families, and Toxoplasmosis Research Institute. This work also was supported by DMID-NIAID U01 AI77887 2R01AI027530-18A2, R01 AI071319-01 (R.M.), the China scholarship Council, a Grant from the National Natural Science Foundation Project of China (No. 30700693 ), the Intramural Research Program (NIH, NIAID [MG]) and The Research to Prevent Blindness Foundation. ",
year = "2011",
month = jan,
day = "17",
doi = "10.1016/j.vaccine.2010.11.015",
language = "English (US)",
volume = "29",
pages = "754--762",
journal = "Vaccine",
issn = "0264-410X",
publisher = "Elsevier Ltd",
number = "4",
}