Characterization of reactive peptides recognized in study individual CC 23.

aThe previously described HLA allele to restrict the epitope was absent in the individual, however HLA A*0201 was found to be a strong binder to the epitope within this peptide with a binding affinity of 5 nM for peptide 7 and a weak binder with an affinity of 135 nM for peptide 11, using NetMHC.
bNo epitope described nor predicted to bind to HLA alleles of this participant in this peptide. cClades A and D had no p15 region of the Gag protein.
Some peptide variants with substitutions in regions flanking the epitope showed discordant recognition patterns regardless of matching epitope sequence, possibly due to additional non hydrophobic amino acids at the C-terminal or N-terminal that are not well tolerated by class I alleles [63].
ELISPOT reactivity is shown for variants that were reactive, while 0 denotes those that were not reactive. Italicized letters in the peptide sequence indicate amino acid mismatches between that peptide variant and the CDu422 sequence. The bold letters show amino acid mismatches between the peptide variant sequence and the infecting virus. The predicted epitope in each variant is underlined. SFU: Spot Forming Units (per 106 PBMC).