Antiviral protective immunity induced by major histocompatibility complex class I molecule-restricted viral T-lymphocyte epitopes inserted in various positions in immunologically self and nonself proteins.

Injection into mice of chimeric proteins consisting of a portion of either the simian virus 40 large tumor antigen or nonstructural protein 1 of influenza A virus or of the murine tumor suppressor p53 on one hand and T-cell epitopes of lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus on the other resulted in antiviral protective immunity, which was independent of the epitopes' position in the protein and the same whether the latter was immunologically nonself or self. Mice of different haplotypes were protected when the corresponding class I molecule-restricted epitopes had been inserted close to each other in one carrier protein.