Selection of Conserved Epitopes from Hepatitis C Virus for Pan-Populational Stimulation of T-Cell Responses
Figure 3
Three-dimensional structure mapping of HCV-specific invariant CTL epitopes. HCV fragments LIFCHSKKKCDEL and ITYSTYGKFL map onto two different regions of the 3D structure of HCV NS3 helicase (PDB: 2F55), (a) and (b), respectively. Each of these two fragments encompasses two overlapping HCV-specific epitopes. The HCV epitope TIMAKNEVF maps onto HCV polymerase (PDB: 2BRK) (c). Residue color used in the illustrations is related to their solvent accessibility and goes from blue for buried residues to red for accessible residues. Overlapping HCV-specific CTL epitopes are shown underlined. Solvent accessibility was calculated and mapped onto the 3D structures as indicated in Section 2. The figures were rendered using Rasmol [48].
