Figure 1

Identification of antigenic arenavirus-derived CD4⁺T cell epitopes in HLA-DRB1*0101 transgenic mice. Groups of HLA-DRB1*0101 transgenic mice were inoculated with a rVACV expressing a single arenavirus antigen, and 7 days later, immunized with an appropriate pool of GTOV, JUNV, LASV, LCMV, MACV, SABV, or WWAV peptides. Positive peptides in IFN-γ ELISPOT assays were tested in ICS assays using splenocytes from immunized HLA-DRB1*0101 mice as described in Materials and Methods. The numbers indicate the percent of CD4⁺ T cells producing IFN-γ following stimulation with 3 μg/ml of each of the listed peptides. A peptide was considered positive if the response was ≥ 2 SI above background in two experiments. Representative data from at least two independent experiments is shown.