Author(s)

Eric L. Brown, Keri Csencsits Smith, Maria Gabriela Bowden

Center for Infectious Disease, University of Texas School of Public Health, Houston, USA.
Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, University Texas-Houston Medical School, Houston, USA.
Institute of Biosciences and Technology, Texas A&M University Health Science Center, Houston, USA;.

We previously observed the elicitation of a significant delayed-type hypersensitivity response to the Panton-Valentine leukocidin (PVL) LukS-PV subunit following subcutaneous immunization (Brown et al., Clinical Microbiology and Infection, 2009, 156: 156-164). A LukS-PV-specific cell line (LST) was screened for proliferative responses against a panel of 25 amino acid-long peptides spanning the length of LukS-PV (amino acids 29-312). This analysis demonstrated that stimulation of LST with LukS-PV resulted in significant proliferative responses and adoptive transfer of LST into na?ve mice conferred a LukS-PV-specific DTH response following challenge. Challenge of mice adoptively transferred with LST with peptides 7 (149-173), 8 (169-193) and 14 (289-312) also elicited a measurable DTH response suggesting that these peptides contained T cell epitopes.

Staphylococcus; Cell Mediated Immunity; Panton-Valentine Leukocidin; T Cells

Brown, E. , Smith, K. and Bowden, M. (2012) Identification of a T-cell epitope in the Staphylococcus aureus Panton-Valentine LukS-PV component. Open Journal of Immunology, 2, 111-115. doi: 10.4236/oji.2012.23013.