ADENOVIRUS-PULSED DENDRITIC CELLS STIMULATE HUMAN VIRUS-SPECIFIC T-CELL RESPONSES IN-VITRO

Adenovirus infections cause significant morbidity and mortality in imm unocompromised patients, yet little is known about the immune response to adenovirus infections. We established a system for the generation of a cytotoxic immune response to adenovirus in vitro, Cytotoxic T cel ls (CTLs) were derived from normal donors by using peripheral blood de ndritic cells as antigen-presenting cells, The CTLs were found to cont ain a mixture of effector cells that recognized virus peptides in the context of both class I and class II antigens. Endogenous viral gene e xpression was not required to sensitize cells to lysis by adenovirus-s pecific CTLs. CTLs raised against subgroup C adenovirus type 5 can lys e cells infected with subgroup B adenovirus type 11, indicating that: viruses of different subgroups have epitopes in common. This system ho lds promise for defining the human immune response to adenovirus, incl uding characterization of the viral protein(s) against which the respo nse is generated, and the identity of the effector cells. Such studies are in progress.