%0 Journal Article %A Wege, Helmut %A Schliephake, Andreas %A Körner, Heiner %A Flory, Egbert %A Wege, Hanna %T An immunodominant CD4+ T cell site on the nucleocapsid protein of murine coronavirus contributes to protection against encephalomyelitis %D 1993 %J Journal of General Virology, %V 74 %N 7 %P 1287-1294 %@ 1465-2099 %R https://doi.org/10.1099/0022-1317-74-7-1287 %I Microbiology Society, %X The murine coronavirus neurotropic strain JHM (MHV-JHM) nucleocapsid (N) protein induces a strong T-helper cell response in Lewis rats. It has been shown previously that N-specific CD4+ T cells can confer protection against acute disease upon transfer to otherwise lethally infected rats. To define the major antigenic regions that elicit this T cell response, truncated fragments of N protein were expressed from a bacterial expression vector and employed as T cell antigens. Lymphocytes from either MHV-JHM-infected or immunized rats were stimulated in culture with virus antigen, grown and tested for their specificity to the N protein fragments. The carboxy-terminally located C4-N fragment (95 amino acids) induced the most pronounced proliferative response irrespective of whether the lymphocyte culture was derived from immunized or MHV-JHM-infected rats. We established T cell lines specific for the truncated N protein fragments and tested their potential to mediate protection by transfer experiments. Only the T cell line C4-N and the T cell line specific for the full-length N protein were protective. By contrast, all truncated N protein fragments elicited a humoral immune response and contained antigenic sites recognized by antibodies from diseased rats. %U https://www.microbiologyresearch.org/content/journal/jgv/10.1099/0022-1317-74-7-1287