Isolation of an endogenously processed immunodominant viral peptide from the class I H–2Kb molecule

Abstract

Using an approach for isolating and characterizing peptide fractions that are intracellularly associated with major histocompatibility complex class I molecules, the major peptide recognized by cytotoxic T cells specific for the vesicular stomatitis virus has been isolated from the H–2K^b molecule of infected cells. This endogenously processed octapeptide is allele-specific as it does not bind to H–2D^b molecules, and contains the core sequence of the epitope of the nucleocapsid protein of the vesicular stomatitis virus identified by testing with exogenous synthetic peptides.