PARAMETERS AFFECTING THE IMMUNOGENICITY OF RECOMBINANT T-CELL EPITOPES INSERTED INTO HYBRID PROTEINS

In the past few years a considerable number of studies have focused on the mechanisms of antigen presentation by classical major histocompat ibility complex (LMHC) class I and class II encoded molecules. Among d ifferent approaches, the engineering of recombinant-chimeric genes and proteins has provided new tools to analyze the parameters influencing the intracellular processing of antigenic determinants. This review w ill summarize and discuss the different models of recombinant genes an d molecules that have been used to analyze the influence of the molecu lar environment of a T cell determinant on its efficient processing an d MHC presentation. This approach may also represent an interesting to ol for developing new vaccine strategies for inducing T cell responses against pathogens. (C) American Society for Histocompatibility and Im munogenetics, 1997.