Private specificities of CD8 T cell responses control patterns of heterologous immunity

Kim, Sung-Kwon; Cornberg, Markus; Wang, Xiaoting Z.; Chen, Hong D.; Selin, Liisa K.; Welsh, Raymond M.

A second feature of these responses was that there was no predictable increase of CD8 T cells specific to any particular LCMV epitope, as the expansion pattern varied between individual mice (Fig. 1 , B and C, and Table I ). In mouse no. 12, the GP33/34-specific response (directed at either of two overlapping epitopes) was most favored, and the 100% pres-ervation of this GP33/34-specific response actually represents a 260% increase, taking into account the increased frequency of CD8 T cells. Sometimes there was a response directed against two epitopes, such as against NP205 and GP118 in mouse no. 17. There were no obvious alterations of T cell hierarchies in the individual LCMV-immune mice that enabled us to predict what specificity would dominate during the response to VV (Fig. 1 C) .