Figure 1

Activation of Tax-specific CTLs by 293T cells expressing SCTs with Tax 180–188 epitope. (A) Diagram of full-length rat MHC-I (RT1.A^l). (B) Diagram of SCTs encoding Tax180-188 or NLEnv371-379 linked to β₂m and RT1.A^l molecules with different lengths of linkers. L1, linker 1; TM, transmembrane region; Cyto, cytoplasmic region. (C and D) The 293T cells were either untreated or transfected with pEF/RT1Al, pEF/RT1AlSCNLEnv371S, pEF/RT1AlSCTax180S, or pEF/RT1AlSCTax180L. The 293T cells were then incubated with a Tax-specific CD8+ T cell line, 4O1/C8. Production of IFN-γ (C) and TNF-α (D) in the supernatants was measured by ELISA after 24 hours of culture. The data represent the mean ± the SD of triplicate wells. Similar results were obtained in two independent experiments.