scholarly journals Gag Protein Epitopes Recognized by ELA-A-Restricted Cytotoxic T Lymphocytes from Horses with Long-Term Equine Infectious Anemia Virus Infection

1998 ◽  
Vol 72 (12) ◽  
pp. 9612-9620 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wei Zhang ◽  
Scott M. Lonning ◽  
Travis C. McGuire

ABSTRACT Most equine infectious anemia virus (EIAV)-infected horses have acute clinical disease, but they eventually control the disease and become lifelong carriers. Cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTL) are considered an important immune component in the control of infections with lentiviruses including EIAV, but definitive evidence for CTL in the control of disease in carrier horses is lacking. By using retroviral vector-transduced target cells expressing different Gag proteins and overlapping synthetic peptides of 16 to 25 amino acids, peptides containing at least 12 Gag CTL epitopes recognized by virus-stimulated PBMC from six long-term EIAV-infected horses were identified. All identified peptides were located within Gag matrix (p15) and capsid (p26) proteins, as no killing of target cells expressing p11 and p9 occurred. Each of the six horses had CTL recognizing at least one Gag epitope, while CTL from one horse recognized at least eight different Gag epitopes. None of the identified peptides were recognized by CTL from all six horses. Two nonamer peptide epitopes were defined from Gag p26; one (18a) was likely restricted by class I equine leukocyte alloantigen A5.1 (ELA-A5.1) molecules, and the other (28b-1) was likely restricted by ELA-A9 molecules. Sensitization of equine kidney target cells for CTLm killing required 10 nM peptide 18a and 1 nM 28b-1. The results demonstrated that diverse CTL responses against Gag epitopes were generated in long-term EIAV-infected horses and indicated that ELA-A class I molecules were responsible for the diversity of CTL epitopes recognized. This information indicates that multiple epitopes or whole proteins will be needed to induce CTL in horses with different ELA-A alleles in order to evaluate their role in controlling EIAV.

2004 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 271-276 ◽  
Author(s):  
Travis C. McGuire ◽  
Darrilyn G. Fraser ◽  
Robert H. Mealey

AbstractCytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTL) are associated with virus control in horses infected with equine infectious anemia virus (EIAV). Early in infection, control of the initial viremia coincides with the appearance of CTL and occurs before the appearance of neutralizing antibody. In carrier horses, treatment with immunosuppressive drugs results in viremia before a change in serum neutralizing antibody occurs. Clearance of initial viremia caused by other lentiviruses, including human immunodeficiency virus-1 and simian immunodeficiency virus, is also associated with CTL and not neutralizing antibody. In addition, depletion of CD8+cells prior to infection of rhesus monkeys with simian immunodeficiency prevents clearance of virus and the same treatment of persistently infected monkeys results in viremia. Cats given adoptive transfers of lymphocytes from vaccinated cats were protected and the protection was MHC-restricted, occurred in the absence of antiviral humoral immunity, and correlated with the transfer of cells with feline immunodeficiency virus-specific CTL and T-helper lymphocyte activities. Therefore, a lentiviral vaccine, including one for EIAV, needs to induce CTL. Based on initial failures to induce CTL to EIAV proteins by any means other than infection, we attempted to define an experimental system for the evaluation of methods for CTL induction. CTL epitopes restricted by the ELA-A1 haplotype were identified and the MHC class I molecule presenting these peptides was identified. This was done by expressing individual MHC class I molecules from cDNA clones in target cells. The target cells were then pulsed with peptides and used with effector CTL stimulated with the same peptides. In a preliminary experiment, immunization of three ELA-A1 haplotype horses with an Env peptide restricted by this haplotype resulted in CTL in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) which recognized the Env peptide and virus-infected cells, but the CTL response was transient. Nevertheless there was significant protection against clinical disease following EIAV challenge of these immunized horses when compared with three control horses given the same virus challenge. These data indicated that responses to peptides in immunized horses needed to be enhanced. Optimal CTL responses require help from CD4+T lymphocytes, and experiments were done to identify EIAV peptides which stimulated CD4+T lymphocytes in PBMC from infected horses with different MHC class II types. Two broadly cross-reactive Gag peptides were identified which stimulated only an interferon γ response by CD4+T lymphocytes, which indicated a T helper 1 response is needed for CTL stimulation. Such peptides should facilitate CTL responses; however, other problems in inducing protection against lentiviruses remain, the most significant of them being EIAV variants that can escape both CTL and neutralizing antibody. A possible solution to CTL escape variants is the induction of high-avidity CTL to multiple EIAV epitopes.


Virology ◽  
1997 ◽  
Vol 238 (1) ◽  
pp. 85-93 ◽  
Author(s):  
Travis C McGuire ◽  
Wei Zhang ◽  
Melissa T Hines ◽  
Pamela J Henney ◽  
Katherine M Byrne

1998 ◽  
Vol 72 (10) ◽  
pp. 8344-8348 ◽  
Author(s):  
Feng Li ◽  
Bridget A. Puffer ◽  
Ronald C. Montelaro

ABSTRACT Equine infectious anemia virus (EIAV) contains the simplest genome among lentiviruses in that it encodes only three putative regulatory genes (S1, S2, S3) in addition to the canonical gag, pol, and envgenes, presumably reflecting its limited tropism to cells of monocyte/macrophage lineage. Tat and Rev functions have been assigned to S1 and S3, respectively, but the specific function for the S2 gene has yet to be determined. Thus, the function of S2 in virus replication in vitro was investigated by using an infectious molecular viral clone, EIAVUK. Various EIAVUK mutants lackingS2 were constructed, and their replication kinetics were examined in several equine cell culture systems, including the natural in vivo target equine macrophage cells. The EIAV S2 mutants showed replication kinetics similar to those of the parental virus in all of the tested primary and transformed equine cell cultures, without any detectable reversion of mutant genomes. The EIAVUKmutants also showed replication kinetics similar to those of the parental virus in an equine blood monocyte differentiation-maturation system. These results demonstrate for the first time that the EIAVS2 gene is not essential and does not appear to affect virus infection and replication properties in target cells in vitro.


2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ajit Chande ◽  
Cristiana Cuccurullo ◽  
Annachiara Rosa ◽  
Serena Ziglio ◽  
Susan Carpenter ◽  
...  

ABSTRACTThe lentivirus equine infectious anemia virus (EIAV) encodes S2, a pathogenic determinant important for virus replication and disease progression in horses. No molecular function has yet been linked to this accessory protein. We now report that S2 can replace the activity of Nef on HIV-1 infectivity, being required to antagonize the inhibitory activity of SERINC proteins on Nef-defective HIV-1. Similar to Nef, S2 excludes SERINC5 from virus particles and requires an ExxxLL motif predicted to recruit the clathrin adaptor AP2. Accordingly, a functional endocytic machinery is essential for S2-mediated infectivity enhancement, which is impaired by inhibitors of clathrin-mediated endocytosis. In addition to retargeting SERINC5 to a late endosomal compartment, S2 promotes the host factor degradation. Emphasizing the similarity with Nef, we show that S2 is myristoylated and, compatible with a crucial role of the post-translational modification, its N-terminal glycine is required for the anti-SERINC5 activity.EIAV-derived vectors devoid of S2 are less susceptible than HIV-1 to the inhibitory effect of both human and equine SERINC5. We then identified the envelope glycoprotein of EIAV as a determinant which also modulates retrovirus susceptibility to SERINC5, indicating a bi-modular ability of the equine lentivirus to counteract the host factor.S2 shares no sequence homology with other retroviral factors known to counteract SERINC5. Adding to primate lentivirus Nef and gammaretrovirus glycoGag, the accessory protein from EIAV makes another example of a retroviral virulence determinant which independently evolved SERINC5-antagonizing activity. SERINC5 therefore plays a critical role for the interaction of the host with diverse retrovirus pathogens.Significance StatementSERINC5 and SERINC3 are recently discovered cellular inhibitors of retroviruses, which are incorporated into virus particles and impair their ability to propagate the infection to target cells. Only two groups of viruses (represented by HIV-1 and MLV) have so far been identified to have evolved the ability of counteracting SERINC inhibition. We now discovered that Equine infectious anemia virus, which causes a debilitating disease in horses, also acquired the ability to protect the virus particle from inhibition by SERINC5 and SERINC3, using its small protein S2. The evidence that three different retroviruses have independently evolved the ability to elude inhibition bySERINC5 and SERINC3 indicates that these cellular factors play a fundamental role against various retrovirus pathogens.


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