Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
15
The Use of Peptide/MHC Tetramers to
Visualize, Track, and Characterize Class
I-Restricted Anti-HIV T-cell Responses
Clive M. Gray and Thomas C. Merigan
Center for AIDS Research at Stanford, Division of Infectious Diseases and
Geographic Medicine, Stanford University Medical Center, Palo Alto,
California, USA
INTRODUCTION
During the initial burst of immunity to human immunode®ciency virus ( HIV )-1
infection, human leukocyte antigen (HLA) class I-restricted cytotoxic T lym-
phocytes (CTL) are thought to play an important role in the initial containment
of viral load ( Borrow et al., 1994). Identi®cation of conserved regions in HIV-1
proteins that are recognized by CTL is important for control of viral replica-
tion (da Silva and Hughes, 1998; Goulder et al., 1997b). The important part
that CTL play in providing protection is emphasized by their role in long-term
nonprogressors (LTNP), i.e., no disease progression (Ogg et al., 1999b), and
highly exposed persistently seronegative individuals ( HEPS), i.e., protection
from infection (Rowland-Jones et al., 1998, 1999). Protective CTL responses
have also been shown in experimental viral infection models with lymphocytic
choriomeningitis virus (LCMV ) (Sourdive et al., 1998; Weidt et al., 1998). The
development of CTL responses, identi®ed in HIV-1 clinical studies (Ogg et
al., 1999b; Wilson et al., 2000), occurs rapidly in most infected individuals and
coincides with the fall in plasma viral load (Wilson et al., 2000), and by this
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