Screening of T cell responses with pools of AQP4 peptides.

<p>Mice were immunized with full length AQP4 protein/CFA. Draining lymph node cells and splenocytes were restimulated <i>in vitro</i> with pools of overlapping AQP4 peptides (<a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0016083#pone-0016083-t001" target="_blank">Tables 1</a> and <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0016083#pone-0016083-t002" target="_blank">2</a>). (A) Proliferative responses of AQP4-sensitized lymphocytes to 21 pools of overlapping AQP4 peptides as measured by ³[H] thymidine incorporation (c.p.m.). Mean of triplicate cultures + SD or stimulation indices as calculated by deviding the c.p.m. values of each peptide pool by the background c.p.m. This experiment was performed twice with similar results. (B) In a second round of restimulation, T cells out of each pool were stimulated with the individual peptides of the parental pool in the presence of irradiated syngeneic splenocytes as APCs. Proliferative responses of T cell pools that showed antigen specific responses to at least one individual splenocytes with a stimulation index of at least 3.0 are depicted. Mean of ³[H] thymidine incorporation (c.p.m.) of triplicate cultures + SD are shown.