[Identification of T cell epitopes of p210(bcr-abl); antigen and detection of epitope-specific CTLs.].

AIM: To study the immunogenicity of p210(bcr-abl);, the epitopes of HLA-A2 restricted T cells and the distribution of epitope-specific CTLs in chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) patients and in normal controls.

METHODS

Two epitopes, BCR-ABL(642); and BCR-ABL(926m);, were selected using bioinfomatics software and further confirmed by T2 cell binding assay. The soluble HLA-A2 tetramers bound with each epitope were generated to detect the CD8(+); T cell frequencies in peripheral blood mononuclear cells.

RESULTS

The epitope-specific CD8(+); T cell frequencies of both BCR-ABL(642); and BCR-ABL(926m); were significantly higher in CML patients, compared with those in healthy individuals(P<0.01), but no significant difference was observed in influenza epitope-specific CTLs between the patients and healthy individuals (P>0.05). The frequency of BCR-ABL(642); peptide-specific CTLs at chronic phase was significantly higher than that at blast phase in CML patients (P<0.05).

CONCLUSION

The two candidate epitopes selected from p210(bcr-abl); are characterized by their immunogenicity and based on them, vaccines or adoptive CTL therapies can be developed.