Manipulation of the helper T cell response to influence antigenic competition occurring with a multivalent vaccine

Summary The reduction in antibody observed following inoculation with multiple heterologous Dichelobacter nodosus pili antigens is thought to be due to competition between antigen‐specific B cells for a limited amount of T cell help. We demonstrate here that this competition is not further influenced by the expansion of cross‐reactive antibody secreting cells at the expense of serogroup specific antibody secreting cells. The T cell determinants of pili recognized by sheep and BALB/c mice have been defined using 15 residue peptides. These T cell determinants include cross‐reactive determinants in the conserved amino terminal region of the antigen. Here we investigate the effect of expanding the pili‐specific T cell population by priming with pili derived T cell determinants. It was not possible to increase the antibody elicited in response to the multivalent vaccine by priming mice with either a synthetic peptide spanning a T cell determinant or with reduced and alkylated or heterologous serogroups of pili 4 weeks before inoculation with the multivalent vaccine. A strategy designed to increase the T cell population by inoculating animals with pili covalently coupled to an extrinsic T cell determinant was pursued.