ED3-specific T-cell epitope mapping.

<p>Mice (n = 4 per group) were immunized with either pDV13-ED3 or pDV24-ED3 and boosted with recombinant DENV-4 ED3 (rD4) with alum 2 weeks later. (A) Spleen cells were harvested 1 week after the boost, and T-cell epitopes were mapped using IFN-γ ELISPOT. The mean and SD of IFN-γ SFC per million cells responding to sixteen individual peptides for each serotype ED3 are shown. The significance shown in the graph was determined in comparison to other individual peptides. (B) Part of spleen cells were treated with anti-CD4 antibody conjugated with magnetic beads (MACs) for CD4⁺ cells depletion or were left untreated to analyze the CD4 dependence of specific IFN-γ response by ELISPOT. The mean and SD of IFN-γ SFC per million cells with or without CD4-depletion are indicated. (C) The amino acid sequences of ED3 peptide number 10 (E_349-363) and 4 (E_313-327) from DENV-1 to 4 are listed.