cytomegalovirus antigen - what is meant by that, difference to lysate? (Jul/17/2008 )

Hi everyone,

I did read a few articles describing the use of cytomegalovirus (CMV) antigen (e.g. in blood, JEM).

This must be different to lysate from CMV infected cells as I found the following written:

"Preparation of CMV-specific T-cell lines
PBMNCs were incubated for 10 days in 10 mL RPMI with CMV lysate (1:200
diluted). Cells were restimulated with feeder cells and
CMV antigen (1:1000) in RPMI..."

Can anyone tell me what is meant by "viral antigen"? If it is e.g. a mix of peptide this would be crucially different from lysate since lysate primarily induces CD4+ T cells. However in that case the proteins from which peptide were derived would probably have been mentioned?

Many thanks in advance for any hints.

RP

The antigen is probably an immuno-purified protein/peptide that is specific to CMV. Lysate will of course contain a whole heap of other proteins from the virus and the cells that may or may not induce an immune response in the cells to which the lysate is added, thus you cannot say that any response is due to the virus protein.