Comparative Immunogenicity in Rabbits of the Polypeptides Encoded by the 5′ Terminus of Hepatitis C Virus RNA

Figure 4

Proliferative response to HCV core in rabbits immunized with HCV core 1–152 visualized as stimulation indexes (SI). Stimulation of PBMCs of rabbits 89/4 and 90/5 with synthetic peptides derived from core 1–152 two weeks after prime (week 4) and two weeks after the last boost (week 20); controls are naïve rabbits () and rabbits were immunized with irrelevant protein antigens () (a); low or no dependence of T-cell stimulation on the concentration of HCV core 1–152 used in proliferation test in the test done prime (week 4) (b). All antigen stimulation tests were performed in triplicate. Test results were discarded if radioactivity incorporation values demonstrated by mitogen PHA were below 1000 counts per minute and if stimulation indexes in response to PHA were below 2.

(a)

(b)