Comparative analysis of fourteen individual human cytomegalovirus proteins for helper T cell response

The potential of selected proteins of human cyto-megalovirus (HCMV) to induce a helper T (Th) cell immune response was investigated in healthy HCMV-seropositive donors. Recombinant derived glycoproteins B (gpUL55), H (gpUL75), integral membrane protein (pULl00), the US6-US11 glycoprotein family (pUS6-USll), the matrix proteins pp65 (ppUL83), pp28 (ppUL99) and the immediate early proteins IE1 (pULl23), IE2 (pULl22) and UL69 (pUL69) were used as stimulating antigens in a lymphocyte proliferation assay. The antigen-specific proliferative response was measured in HCMV-specific T cell lines (phenotype CD4 ÷ CD8) generated from five donors by stimulation of peripheral blood mononuclear cells with purified HCMV or HCMV-infected fibroblasts. A proliferative