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).