Tung K S, Lou Y H, Luo A M, Ang J
Department of Pathology, University of Virginia, Charlottesville 22901.
Reprod Fertil Dev. 1994;6(3):349-55. doi: 10.1071/rd9940349.
A summary is presented of published and some unpublished observations from studies on the immunological response of mice to a 13-mer peptide of the murine ovarian zona pellucida glycoprotein ZP3. The findings have the following implications for the design of immunocontraceptive vaccines. To be reversible, a ZP3 vaccine must not contain pathogenic T cell epitopes of ZP3, but contraception without autoimmune oophoritis may be feasible. The immune response to the ZP3 mini-autoantigen is highly variable among inbred mouse strains, suggesting that a single oophoritogenic peptide would not achieve irreversible contraception in an outbred population. The discovery of antigen mimicry at the level of T cell peptide has thrown doubt on the validity of current strategy in detecting relevant self-antigens that might cross react with vaccine immunogens and on the feasibility of fully predicting the cross-reactive autoimmunogenic potential of a peptide or polypeptide vaccine antigen. Autoantibodies directed against epitopes outside the ZP3 mini-autoantigen, produced by immunization with the pure T cell epitope, react with high affinity, with native zona pellucida, and may be useful in identifying B cell epitopes in ZP3.
本文总结了已发表的以及一些未发表的关于小鼠对鼠卵巢透明带糖蛋白ZP3的13聚体肽免疫反应的研究观察结果。这些发现对免疫避孕疫苗的设计具有以下意义。要实现可逆性，ZP3疫苗不能包含ZP3的致病性T细胞表位，但无自身免疫性卵巢炎的避孕可能是可行的。对ZP3微小自身抗原的免疫反应在近交系小鼠品系中高度可变，这表明单一的致卵巢炎肽在远交群体中无法实现不可逆避孕。T细胞肽水平上抗原模拟的发现，使目前检测可能与疫苗免疫原发生交叉反应的相关自身抗原的策略的有效性以及完全预测肽或多肽疫苗抗原交叉反应自身免疫原性潜力的可行性受到质疑。用纯T细胞表位免疫产生的针对ZP3微小自身抗原之外表位的自身抗体，与天然透明带具有高亲和力反应，可能有助于鉴定ZP-3中的B细胞表位。
