Abstract
Predicting which peptides can elicit a T cell response (i.e. are immunogenic) is of great importance for many immunological studies. While it is clear that MHC binding is a necessary requirement for peptide immunogenicity, other variables exist that are incompletely understood. In this study we examined the hypothesis that conservation of a peptide in bacteria that are part of the healthy human microbiome leads to a reduced level of immunogenicity due to tolerization of T cells to the commensal bacteria. This was done by comparing experimentally characterized T cell epitope recognition data from the Immune Epitope Database with their conservation in the human microbiome. Indeed, we did see a lower immunogenicity for conserved peptides conserved. While many aspects how this conservation comparison is done require further optimization, this is a first step towards a better understanding T cell recognition of peptides in bacterial pathogens is influenced by their conservation in commensal bacteria. If the further work proves that this approach is successful, the degree of overlap of a peptide with the human proteome or microbiome could be added to the arsenal of tools available to assess peptide immunogenicity.
Info
Conference Paper, 2014
UN SDG Classification
DK Main Research Area
Science/Technology
