Final Report Summary - Vaccines4TB (Genome- and HLA- wide scanning and validation of cytotoxic CD8 T cell responses against Mycobacterium tuberculosis)
The project has discovered 129 epitopes of which 71 are HLA-A2-, 17 HLA-A3-, and 41 HLA-B7 -restricted peptides. Moreover, the project has generated a high quality shotgun expression, library representing the whole genome of the MTB-strain H37Rv and used it to screen blood samples. Using this method, 37 different antigens could be identified and characterised. In the last year of the project, the project has performed in vivo immunisation studies in HLA-A2 transgenic mice, investigating immune recognition of the most promising HLA-A2 binding Mtb peptides. The results obtained in this project provide new target epitopes for the development of vaccines against TB.