background: filamentous hemagglutinin (fha) is one of the most important immunoprotective antigens of bordetella pertussis (b.pertussis) and a major component of the acellular pertussis vaccine. in the present study, three overlapping recombinant fragments from the immunodominant region of fha were produced and their immunogenicity was investigated. methods: three overlapping coding sequences o...

OBJECTIVES To investigate the association between psychosocial, sociodemographic and material determinants of positive mental health in Europe. DESIGN Cross-sectional analysis of survey data. SETTING 34 European countries. PARTICIPANTS Representative Europe-wide sample consisting of 21 066 men and 22 569 women aged 18 years and over, from 34 European countries participating in the third w...

Immunodominant T-cell responses are important for virus clearance. However, the identification of immunodominant T-cell peptide + HLA glycoprotein epitopes has been hindered by the extent of HLA polymorphism and the limitations of predictive algorithms. A simple, systematic approach has been used here to screen for immunodominant CD8(+) T-cell specificities. The analysis targeted healthy HLA-A2...

The identification of target structures is a prerequisite for the development of new treatment options, like antibody based therapy, against methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). In this study we identified immunodominant structures which were expressed in vivo during sepsis caused by MRSA. Using human sera we compared the immune response of humans with MRSA sepsis with the immune...

BACKGROUND We earlier reported a simple specific test for detection of anti-ovarian antibodies in infertile women and identified number of specific molecular and cellular targets of which human heat shock protein 90-beta (HSP90 beta) was found to be the most immunodominant. The present study focuses on prediction and validation of the immunodominant epitope/s of this protein using sera from inf...

Snake venom is a complex mixture of proteins, peptides, enzymes, carbohydrates, and minerals. They contain a variety of chemicals with pharmacological and toxicological properties. The innate immune system is the first line of defense against toxins and microbes. Antibacterial and anticancer proteins produced by snake venom have recently attracted significant attention due to their relevance to...

T-cell receptor (TCR) immunotherapy uses T cells engineered with new TCRs to enable detection and killing of cancer cells. Efficacy of TCR immunotherapy depends on targeting antigenic peptides that are efficiently presented by the best-suited major histocompatibility complex (MHC) molecules of cancer cells. However, efficient strategies are lacking to easily identify TCRs recognizing immunodomi...

Trypanosoma cruzi infection is controlled but not eliminated by host immunity. The T. cruzi trans-sialidase (TS) gene superfamily encodes immunodominant protective antigens, but expression of altered peptide ligands by different TS genes has been hypothesized to promote immunoevasion. We molecularly defined TS epitopes to determine their importance for protection versus parasite persistence. Pe...

CD8(+) T lymphocytes (T(CD8)) responding to subdominant epitopes provide alternate targets for the immunotherapy of cancer, particularly when self-tolerance limits the response to immunodominant epitopes. However, the mechanisms that promote T(CD8) subdominance to tumor Ags remain obscure. We investigated the basis for the lack of priming against a subdominant tumor epitope following immunizati...