%0 Journal Article %A Hart, Jane %A MacHugh, Niall D. %A Sheldrake, Tara %A Nielsen, Morten %A Morrison, W. Ivan %T Identification of immediate early gene products of bovine herpes virus 1 (BHV-1) as dominant antigens recognized by CD8 T cells in immune cattle %D 2017 %J Journal of General Virology, %V 98 %N 7 %P 1843-1854 %@ 1465-2099 %R https://doi.org/10.1099/jgv.0.000823 %K cattle %K T-cell antigens %K epitope prediction %K Bovine herpes virus 1 %K CD8 T cell %I Microbiology Society, %X In common with other herpes viruses, bovine herpes virus 1 (BHV-1) induces strong virus-specific CD8 T-cell responses. However, there is a paucity of information on the antigenic specificity of the responding T-cells. The development of a system to generate virus-specific CD8 T-cell lines from BHV-1-immune cattle, employing Theileria-transformed cell lines for antigen presentation, has enabled us to address this issue. Use of this system allowed the study to screen for CD8 T-cell antigens that are efficiently presented on the surface of virus-infected cells. Screening of a panel of 16 candidate viral gene products with CD8 T-cell lines from 3 BHV-1-immune cattle of defined MHC genotypes identified 4 antigens, including 3 immediate early (IE) gene products (ICP4, ICP22 and Circ) and a tegument protein (UL49). Identification of the MHC restriction specificities revealed that the antigens were presented by two or three class I MHC alleles in each animal. Six CD8 T-cell epitopes were identified in the three IE proteins by screening of synthetic peptides. Use of an algorithm (NetMHCpan) that predicts the peptide-binding characteristics of restricting MHC alleles confirmed and, in some cases refined, the identity of the epitopes. Analyses of the epitope specificity of the CD8 T-cell lines showed that a large component of the response is directed against these IE epitopes. The results indicate that these IE gene products are dominant targets of the CD8 T-cell response in BHV-I-immune cattle and hence are prime-candidate antigens for the generation of a subunit vaccine. %U https://www.microbiologyresearch.org/content/journal/jgv/10.1099/jgv.0.000823