{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,1,9]],"date-time":"2026-01-09T20:34:45Z","timestamp":1767990885298,"version":"3.49.0"},"reference-count":33,"publisher":"Frontiers Media SA","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2025,5,21]],"date-time":"2025-05-21T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1747785600000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100012166","name":"National Key Research and Development Program of China","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["2022YFC2304103"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["2022YFC2304103"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100012166","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":["frontiersin.org"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Front. Immunol."],"abstract":"<jats:p>Since the outbreak of novel coronavirus pneumonia (COVID-19), numerous T-cell epitopes in severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) proteome have been reported. However, most of the identified CD8<jats:sup>+<\/jats:sup> T-cell epitopes have been restricted primarily by HLA-A allotypes. The epitopes restricted by HLA-B and HLA-C allotypes are limited. This study focuses on the screening of T-cell epitopes restricted by 13 prevalent HLA-B and 13 prevalent HLA-C allotypes, which cover over 70% and 90% of the Chinese and Northeast Asian populations, respectively. Totally, 67 HLA-B restricted and 53 HLA-C restricted epitopes were validated as immunogenic epitopes with a herd predominance rate by peptide-PBMCs <jats:italic>ex vivo<\/jats:italic> coculture experiments using the PBMCs from convalescent Chinese cohort. In addition, 26 transfected cell lines expressing indicated HLA-B or HLA-C allotype were established, and used in the competitive peptide binding assays to define the affinities and cross-restriction of each validated epitope binding to HLA-B or HLA-C allotypes. These data will facilitate the design of T-cell-directed vaccines and SARS-CoV-2-specific T-cell detection tools tailored to the Northeast Asian population. The herd test of functionally validated T-cell epitopes, and the competitive peptide binding assay onto cell line array expressing prevalent HLA allotypes may serve as an additional criterion for selecting T-cell epitopes used in vaccine.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3389\/fimmu.2025.1545510","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2025,5,21]],"date-time":"2025-05-21T05:25:36Z","timestamp":1747805136000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3389\/crossmark-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":1,"title":["Predominant T-cell epitopes of SARS-CoV-2 restricted by multiple prevalent HLA-B and HLA-C allotypes in Northeast Asia"],"prefix":"10.3389","volume":"16","author":[{"given":"Yu","family":"Zhao","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Min","family":"Peng","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Chengtao","family":"He","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Min","family":"Li","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Xuelian","family":"Han","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Qiang","family":"Fu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Yandan","family":"Wu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Fangping","family":"Yue","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Chunguang","family":"Yan","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Guangyu","family":"Zhao","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Chuanlai","family":"Shen","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"1965","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2025,5,21]]},"reference":[{"key":"B1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/j.cell.2021.01.007","article-title":"Adaptive 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