Immunogenic epitope panel for accurate detection of non-cross-reactive T cell response to SARS-CoV-2.

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic calls for more effective diagnostic tools. T cell response assessment serves as an independent indicator of prior COVID-19 exposure while also contributing to a more comprehensive characterization of SARS-CoV-2 immunity. In this study, we systematically assessed the immunogenicity of 118 epitopes with immune cells collected from multiple cohorts of vaccinated, convalescent, healthy unexposed, and SARS-CoV-2-exposed donors. We identified 75 immunogenic epitopes, 24 of which were immunodominant. We further confirmed HLA restriction for 49 epitopes and described association with more than 1 HLA allele for 14 of these. Exclusion of 2 cross-reactive epitopes that generated a response in prepandemic samples left us with a 73-epitope set that offered excellent diagnostic specificity without losing sensitivity compared with full-length antigens, and this evoked a robust cross-reactive response. We subsequently incorporated this set of epitopes into an in vitro diagnostic Corona-T-test, which achieved a diagnostic accuracy of 95% in a clinical trial. In a cohort of asymptomatic seronegative individuals with a history of prolonged SARS-CoV-2 exposure, we observed a complete absence of T cell response to our epitope panel. In combination with strong reactivity to full-length antigens, this suggests that a cross-reactive response might protect these individuals.

Testis-specific products of the Drosophila melanogaster sbr gene, encoding nuclear export factor 1, are necessary for male fertility.

The evolutionarily conserved nuclear export factor 1 (NXF1) provides mRNA export from the nucleus to the cytoplasm. We described several testis-specific transcripts of the Drosophila melanogaster nxf1 gene designated "sbr" in this species via different PCR approaches and CAGE-seq analysis. Characteristically, most of them have truncated 3'UTRs compared with those in other organs. In addition to regular transcripts, there are shorter transcripts that begin in intron 3 of the sbr gene. These short, 5'-truncated testis-specific transcripts vary in terms of transcription start site and their ability to exclude or retain the last 237 nucleotides of intron 3 in their 5'UTR. Using an anti-SBR antibody against the C-terminal portion of this protein, we detected the major SBR protein (74 kDa) in all analyzed organs of the fly as well as a new smaller protein (60 kDa) found only in the testes. This protein corresponds to the detected sbr transcripts that start in intron 3, based on its molecular mass. We investigated the sbr12 allele of the sbr gene, which is lethal in homozygous females and causes dominant sterility in heterozygous males. Sequencing of the sbr12 gene allele revealed a 30-bp deletion in exon 9 without a frame shift.Western blot analysiswith an SBR-specific antibody revealed two bands of the expected size in the testes of heterozygous males. Thus, a mutant protein along with the normal protein presents in the testes of lethal allele-bearing flies and the described shorter testis-specific variant of SBR may account for male sterility.