DETERMINATION OF T-CELL EPITOPES WITH RANDOM PEPTIDE LIBRARIES

A new approach to T cell epitope determination is presented. Critical amino acids for the induction of cytotoxic T cell responses were ident ified using synthetic peptide libraries with single defined sequence p ositions combined with randomized sequence positions, Sequences for po tential T cell epitopes were deduced from scan profiles using combinat ions of the active amino acids. Highly potent epitopes for cytotoxic T lymphocytes were obtained. Epitopes defined by this approach are, as shown in this communication, not necessarily the natural epitopes and, therefore, were named synthetic epitopes. They can serve effectively for the development of vaccines or for the determination of T cell rec eptor antagonists.