Publication
Title
Immunological evasion of immediate-early varicella zoster virus proteins
Author
Abstract
The varicella zoster virus (VZV) causes the childhood disease commonly known as chickenpox and can later in life reactivate as herpes zoster. The adaptive immune system is known to play an important role in suppressing VZV reactivation. A central aspect of this system is the presentation of VZV-derived peptides by the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) proteins. Here, we investigate if key VZV proteins have evolved their amino acid sequence to avoid presentation by MHC based on predictive models of MHC-peptide affinity. This study shows that the immediate-early proteins of all characterized VZV strains are profoundly depleted for high-affinity MHC-I-restricted epitopes. The same depletion can be found in its closest animal analog, the simian varicella virus. Further orthology analysis towards other herpes viruses suggests that the protein amino acid frequency is one of the primary drivers of targeted epitope depletion.
Language
English
Source (journal)
Immunogenetics. - Berlin
Publication
Berlin : 2016
ISSN
0093-7711
DOI
10.1007/S00251-016-0911-4
Volume/pages
(2016) , p. 1-4
ISI
000378819100009
Full text (Publisher's DOI)
Full text (open access)
Full text (publisher's version - intranet only)
UAntwerpen
Faculty/Department
Research group
Project info
Identification of the HLA-dependent susceptibility to Herpes Zoster in the Belgian population.
Predicting Immune responses by Modeling immunoSequencing data (PIMS).
Publication type
Subject
Affiliation
Publications with a UAntwerp address
External links
Web of Science
Record
Identifier
Creation 10.05.2016
Last edited 09.10.2023
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