1. Surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 immunogenicity: loss of immunodominant HLA-A*02-restricted epitopes that activate CD8+ T cells.
- Author
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Lopes-Ribeiro, Ágata, de Melo Oliveira, Patrícia, Morais Retes, Henrique, Figueiredo Barbosa-Stancioli, Edel, Guimarães da Fonseca, Flávio, Tsuji, Moriya, and Alves Coelho-dos-Reis, Jordana Grazziela
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T cells ,EPITOPES ,SARS-CoV-2 ,IMMUNE response ,VIRAL transmission ,GENETIC vectors - Abstract
Introduction and methods: In this present work, coronavirus subfamilies and SARS-CoV-2 Variants of Concern (VOCs) were investigated for the presence of MHC-I immunodominant viral peptides using in silico and in vitro tools. Results: In our results, HLA-A*02 haplotype showed the highest number of immunodominant epitopes but with the lowest combined prediction score. Furthermore, a decrease in combined prediction score was observed for HLA-A*02-restricted epitopes when the original strain was compared to the VOCs, indicating that the mutations on the VOCs are promoting escape from HLA-A2-mediated antigen presentation, which characterizes a immune evasion process. Additionally, epitope signature analysis revealed major immunogenic peptide loss for structural (S) and non-structural (ORF8) proteins of VOCs in comparison to the Wuhan sequence. Discussion: These results may indicate that the antiviral CD8
+ T-cell responses generated by original strains could not be sufficient for clearance of variants in either newly or reinfection with SARS-CoV-2. In contrast, N epitopes remain the most conserved and reactive peptides across SARS-CoV-2 VOCs. Overall, our data could contribute to the rational design and development of new vaccinal platforms to induce a broad cellular CD8+ T cell antiviral response, aiming at controlling viral transmission of future SARS-CoV-2 variants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]- Published
- 2023
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