We investigated whether peptides could induce immunity in vivo. HLA-A*0201/Kb mice were immunized with 100 μg of various peptides prepared in incomplete Freund’s adjuvant (IFA). The cytolytic assay showed that CTLs primed from neuritin13–21, neuritin121–129 and neuritin4–12 immunized mice could lyse neuritin and HLA-A2.1 positive cells with high efficiency (Fig. 5). These results suggested that the peptides could also achieve higher immunogenicity in vivo.
Fig. 5 In vivo induction of epitope-specific CTLs in vivo. HLA-A*0201/Kb mice were immunized with 100 μg of various peptides prepared in incomplete Freund’s adjuvant (IFA) and boosted once a week for three times. As a control, mice were injected with an IFA emulsion without peptide. 7 days after immunization, splenocytes from injected animals were cultured and used as effector cells. The cytotoxic activities of CTLs were determined against target cells at various E/T ratios using 51Cr release assay. Experiments performed in triplicate showed consistent results. Compared with controls, P < 0.05