Identification of T Helper Cell Epitopes On gp340

Abstract

The Epstein-Barr virus glycoprotein gp340 is likely to be an important component of any future vaccine because of its ability to induce neutralising antibody (1,2). However, experiments which tested gp340 for its ability to protect animals from EBV-induced lymphomas suggested that protection did not correlate with the presence of neutralising antibodies (3,4), inferring that immune T cell responses may be important in mediating protection. Our objective is to characterise immune T cell responses to this antigen in man. To this end we have established (5) a panel of gp340-specific, CD4+ T cell clones raised from seropositive individuals by stimulating peripheral blood mononuclear cells with gp340 in immune stimulating complexes (ISCOMS). Using these clones we have identified two antigenic epitopes within gp340.