Positional Biases of the Experimentally Characterized T-cell Epitopes

Abstract

Binding to Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC) class I and class II molecules is the most restrictive step in T-cell epitope presentation. In humans these molecules are named Human Leukocyte Antigen (HLA) class I and II. However, only a minor part of MHC-binding epitopes are immunogenic. Thus, the most challinging part of T-cell prediction algorithms is to distinguish between immunogenic and nonimmunogenic epitopes. Using HLA-binding data and T-cell functional assay data we have analyzed positional biases and hydropaty of T-cell epitopes in predicted structured and unstructured regions of protein Ag, in an attempt to find out differences between T-cell immunogenic and nonimmunogenic epitopes.