%0 Journal Article %A Onion, David %A Crompton, Laura J. %A Milligan, Donald W. %A Moss, Paul A. H. %A Lee, Steven P. %A Mautner, Vivien %T The CD4+ T-cell response to adenovirus is focused against conserved residues within the hexon protein %D 2007 %J Journal of General Virology, %V 88 %N 9 %P 2417-2425 %@ 1465-2099 %R https://doi.org/10.1099/vir.0.82867-0 %I Microbiology Society, %X Adenovirus is a significant pathogen in immunocompromised patients and is widely utilized as a gene delivery vector, so a detailed understanding of the human immune response to adenovirus infection is critical. This study characterized the adenovirus-specific CD4+ T-cell response of healthy donors by incubation with whole virus or with individual hexon and fiber proteins. Adenovirus-specific CD4+ T cells averaged 0.26 % of the CD4+ T-cell pool and were detectable in all donors. T cells recognizing the highly conserved hexon protein accounted for 0.09 %, whereas no response was observed against the fiber protein. A panel of hexon-specific CD4+ T-cell clones was generated and shown to lyse targets infected with adenovirus from different serotypes and species. Three CD4 T-cell epitopes are described, which map to highly conserved regions of the hexon protein. %U https://www.microbiologyresearch.org/content/journal/jgv/10.1099/vir.0.82867-0