Induction of T cell response to selected CTL epitopes following LVS or DNA-PolyEp immunization.

a CTL epitopes were derived from six proteins respectively: FTL_1916400–410, FTL_0966126–133, FTL_170813–23, FTL_028395–104, FTL_110164–74, and FTL_1673308–318.b Stimulating antigens: 10 mM of the individual peptides or 107 CFU/ml of formalin-inactivated LVS.c C57BL/6 mice were immunized with LVS or the DNA-PolyEp vaccine with CTL epitopes numbered (1)-(6) (see Materials and Methods).d Data represent the mean and SD of three experiments (at least two animals per experiment) that were carried out in duplicate.e The pCI vector was used to express a 186 bp DNA fragment encoding for the 1–6 epitopes (see Materials and Methods).f The peptide “ICYVSTNIM”, an identified CTL epitope in LVS not included in the DNA-PolyEp vaccine, was used as a positive control (see Materials and Methods).g Scrambled sequence of peptide (5).h LVS was inactivated by formalin (see Materials and Methods).