Use of recombinant vaccinia viruses to examine cytotoxic T lymphocyte recognition of individual viral proteins.

Abstract

Cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTL) are believed to play an important role in immunity to tumors and viruses.1 CTL recognize foreign antigens in conjunction with class I major histocompatibility complex (MHC) molecules, and act by either directly lysing cells bearing the foreign antigen, or by releasing molecules with anti-viral and/or anti-tumor activities.2–4 Understanding of CTL has been hindered by difficulties in identifying which foreign antigens are recognized on the target cell surface. We have addressed this problem using recombinant vaccinia viruses containing individual cloned genes from two well characterized viruses which have been extensively used in previous studies of CTL specificity and function, influenza virus (a myxovirus), and vesicular stomatitis virus (a rhabdovirus).