Epitope-specific in vivo protection against cytomegalovirus disease by CD8 T cells in the murine model of preemptive immunotherapy

Preclinical research in murine models as well as subsequent clinical trials have concordantly revealed a high protective potential of antiviral CD8 T cells, of donor-derived ex vivo memory CD8 T cells in particular, in the immunotherapy of cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection in immunocompromised recipients. Although it is generally held view that the observed beneficial effect of the transferred cells is viral epitope-specific, involving the recognition of MHC class-I presented peptides by cognate T cell receptors, this assumption awaits formal proof, at least with regard to the in vivo function of the CD8 T cells. This question is particularly evident for CMV, since the function of viral immune evasion proteins interferes with the MHC class-I pathway of peptide presentation. Alternatively, therefore, one has to consider the possibility that the requirement for epitope recognition may be bypassed by other ligand–receptor interactions between CD8 T cells and infected cells, which may trigger the signaling for effector functions. Clearly, such a mechanism might explain why CD8 T cells are so efficient in controlling CMV infection despite the expression of viral immune evasion proteins. Here we provide direct evidence for epitope-specificity of antiviral protection by employing a recombinant murine CMV (mCMV), namely the mutant virus mCMV-IE1-L176A, in which an immunodominant viral epitope of the regulatory immediate-early protein IE1 is functionally deleted by a point mutation replacing leucine with alanine at the C-terminal MHC anchor position of the antigenic peptide.