Prediction of HLA-A*0201 Restricted Cytotoxic T Lymphocyte Epitopes in Influenza A H1N1 Virus and the Similarity Analysis of These Epitopes with Those Existing in Other Influenza Viruses

In order to predict and compare the identities and differences of HLA-A*0201 restricted cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) epitopes among the influenza A virus ( H1N1), avian influenza virus (H5N1) and human influenza virus (H3N2). The SYFPEITHI, a T-cell epitope prediction tool, was adopted to predict the HLA-A*0201-restricted CTL epitopes in the three influenza viruses; DNAMAN was used to analyze the sequence homology of the proteins contained in the three influenza viruses, which were retrieved from GenBank; The results revealed that a large number of CTL epitopes were shared by the H1N1, H5N1 and H3N2 viruses although significant divergence existed in the protein sequence. This in silico analysis demonstrated that the antigen cross-reaction existed in the three kinds of viruses, which may partly explain why many people who ever experienced H3N2 only displayed mild symptoms when infected with influenza A H1N1 virus. It also suggests that human influenza vaccine inoculation may help attenuate the course of H1N1 induced disease before influenza A H1N1 vaccine is available for the population.