%0 Journal Article %A Kónya, József %A Stuber, György %A Björndal, Åsa %A Fenyö, Eva Maria %A Dillner, Joakim %T Primary induction of human cytotoxic lymphocytes against a synthetic peptide of the human immunodeficiency virus type 1 protease %D 1997 %J Journal of General Virology, %V 78 %N 9 %P 2217-2224 %@ 1465-2099 %R https://doi.org/10.1099/0022-1317-78-9-2217 %I Microbiology Society, %X Identification of in vitro immunogenicT-cell epitopes is important for the design of immunotherapeutics targeted to specific antigenic sites. To identify candidate cytotoxic T-lymphocyte (CTL) epitopes in the protease of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) strain MN, we synthesized 9-mer and 10- mer peptides containing the HLA-A*0201 binding motif. Binding affinity of the peptides was measured by HLA-A*0201 up-regulation on T2 cells. Peptides with high binding-affinity were tested for their ability to stimulate primary CTLs from healthy HIVnegative blood donors. Peptide-specific CTLs were obtained from five out of six donors by stimulation with a 9-mer (LVGPTPVNI) or a 10-mer (VLVGPTPVNI) peptide derived from a highly conserved amino acid stretch in the C-terminal region of the protease. Addition of peptide-specific CTLs to acutely HIV-infected lymphocytes resulted in inhibition of p24 gag production. In conclusion, a highly conserved HIV protease peptide regularly elicits peptide-specific CTLs. Targeting immune responses against defined epitopes in non-variable regions may be a feasible way to minimize the risk of virus escape from immune surveillance. %U https://www.microbiologyresearch.org/content/journal/jgv/10.1099/0022-1317-78-9-2217