37 RMA-S-Kd cells are H-2Kd-transfected TAP function-deficient lymphoma cells.38 RMA, RMA-S, and RMA-S-Kd cells proliferated in RPMI-1640/1 × medium for peptide–MHC class I binding experiments (Gibco Co. & Hyclone Co.). Transfected TAP-mutant cells are kind gifts from National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health (NIH), USA. The RSV was multiplied in HEp-2 cells that were grown with minimum essential medium/1 × (Gibco Co. & Hyclone Co.). Virus was further titrated with plaque selleck inhibitor assay in HEp-2 cells. The RSV was obtained

from the American Type Culture Collection. As presented in the Supplementary material, Fig. S1, influenza A/WSN/33 virus39 was multiplied in MDCK cells cultivated

with Dulbecco’s modified Eagle’s minimal essential medium/1 × (Gibco Co. & Hyclone Co.). The quantification of the H1N1 A/WSN/33 virus was performed with a plaque assay in MDCK cells. Influenza A/WSN/33 virus was provided by Professor Betty A. Wu-Hsieh, which was purchased from the Department of Medical Biotechnology and Laboratory Science, Chang Kung University. The virus was cultivated in the USA. Influenza A/WSN/33 selleck chemical virus originated from the UK.39 The TAP function-deficient cells can distinguish peptides with higher affinity to MHC class I molecules from those with lower affinity. To detect the binding to different MHC class I alleles by variant peptides (Table 1) that are derived either from RSV or from influenza A virus, RMA-S and RMA-S-Kd cells were incubated with 10 μm of synthetic peptides at 37° following inducible expression of H-2 molecules at lower temperature. Comparison of peptide–MHC class I binding affinity between distinct variant peptides and the original M2:82–90, RMA-S-Kd

BCKDHA cells were incubated with a serial dilution of M2:82–90 as well as with each variant peptide derived from M2:82–90 (Table 1) for measurement of the binding capacity of these peptides to H-2Kd molecules. The expression level of MHC class I molecules is presented as a shifted percentage of mean fluorescence intensity (MFI). The equation for calculation of the shifted percentage of MFI is as follows: Shifted percentage of MFI = [(MFIvariant– MFIcontrol)/(MFIoriginal– MFIcontrol) −1] × 100% where MFIoriginal is the MFI of the original epitope, MFIvariant is the MFI of variant epitopes and MFIcontrol is the MFI of the peptide without binding. BALB/c mice were infected with 105–106 plaque-forming units of RSV via the intranasal route. Two to three weeks following infection, spleen mononuclear cells from infected BALB/c mice were isolated to be re-stimulated in vitro with synthetic peptides derived from the RSV M2–1 protein sequence overnight for analysis of specific interferon-γ (IFN-γ) responses by the ELISPOT assay13 (BD Biosciences Co.). BALB/c mice were provided by the National Laboratory Animal Centre in Taiwan.