5kd7

Publication Abstract from PubMed

Unlike cytosolic processing and presentation of viral Ags by virus-infected cells, Ags first expressed in infected nonprofessional APCs, such as CD4(+) T cells in the case of HIV, are taken up by dendritic cells and cross-presented. This generally requires entry through the endocytic pathway, where endosomal proteases have first access for processing. Thus, understanding virus escape during cross-presentation requires an understanding of resistance to endosomal proteases, such as cathepsin S (CatS). We have modified HIV-1MN gp120 by mutating a key CatS cleavage site (Thr(322)Thr(323)) in the V3 loop of the immunodominant epitope IGPGRAFYTT to IGPGRAFYVV to prevent digestion. We found this mutation to facilitate cross-presentation and provide evidence from MHC binding and X-ray crystallographic structural studies that this results from preservation of the epitope rather than an increased epitope affinity for the MHC class I molecule. In contrast, when the protein is expressed by a vaccinia virus in the cytosol, the wild-type protein is immunogenic without this mutation. These proof-of-concept results show that a virus like HIV, infecting predominantly nonprofessional presenting cells, can escape T cell recognition by incorporating a CatS cleavage site that leads to destruction of an immunodominant epitope when the Ag undergoes endosomal cross-presentation.

Effects of Cross-Presentation, Antigen Processing, and Peptide Binding in HIV Evasion of T Cell Immunity.,Frey BF, Jiang J, Sui Y, Boyd LF, Yu B, Tatsuno G, Billeskov R, Solaymani-Mohammadi S, Berman PW, Margulies DH, Berzofsky JA J Immunol. 2018 Jan 26. pii: jimmunol.1701523. doi: 10.4049/jimmunol.1701523. PMID:29374075^[1]

From MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.