The interplay of T cell responses to viral and autoimmune epitopes.

The examination of the immune T cell response to herpes simplex virus (HSV) antigen glycoprotein D (gD) in an ongoing infection has revealed a uniquely broad range of antigenic determinants seen. This has been shown in the murine T cell response to gD determinants where over 60% of the overlapping peptides are recognized as opposed to 1 of 30 peptides seen when gD was injected in Freund's adjuvant. This has also been seen in the response to local autoantigens when the HSV infection is produced by corneal scarification. Furthermore, analysis of the response to the autoantigen, Golli myelin basic protein (MBP), present in the developing thymus is explored.