ABSTRACT
The events of September 11, 2001 revealed a need for regular monitoring of infrastructure systems. Efficient aerosol collection systems are currently in place in a variety of settings in order to sample the immediate surroundings. However, the consequence of regular monitoring is an exponential increase in the number of samples requiring rapid analysis. Automated biological agent testing systems offer a solution by providing the ability to rapidly handle large numbers of samples with fewer personnel. In addition, automated testing also offers the advantage of increased consistency and accuracy compared with human systems.
Subject(s)
Automation , Bioterrorism , Environmental Monitoring/methods , Specimen Handling/methods , Biological Warfare , Environmental Monitoring/instrumentation , Humans , Reproducibility of ResultsABSTRACT
Efficacious lentiviral vaccines designed to induce cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTL) in outbred populations with a diverse repertoire of MHC class I molecules should contain or express multiple viral proteins. To determine the equine infectious anaemia virus (EIAV) proteins with epitopes most frequently recognized by CTL from seven horses infected for 0.5 to 7 years, retroviral vector-transduced target cells expressing viral proteins were used in CTL assays. Gag p15 was recognized by CTL from 100% of these infected horses. p26 was recognized by CTL from 86%, SU and the middle third of Pol protein were each recognized by 43%, TM by 29%, and S2 by 14%. Based on these results, it is likely that a construct expressing the 359 amino acids constituting p15 and p26 would contain epitopes capable of stimulating CTL in most horses.
