Ebola: an analysis of immunity at the molecular level

The 2014 Ebola outbreak in West Africa raised global concern requiring concerted effort from the worldwide scientific community to analyze immune responses, in natural infection and in the context of vaccination and therapy. Herein we review and analyze antibody and T cell epitope data reported in the scientific literature. More than 100 epitopes have been defined for viruses within the Filoviridae family, 73% of which are specific to Zaire ebolavirus (EBOV). While data are available for all EBOV proteins, the vast majority of epitopes relate to the surface glycoprotein, GP. Several neutralizing and/or protective sites are defined for monoclonal antibodies, including those used in the therapeutic cocktails ZMAb, MB-003 and ZMapp. However, little human and non-human primate data (NHP) are currently available, highlighting a crucial gap, especially at the level of T cell responses. To fill this gap, we provide sets of predicted human and macaque CD4+ and CD8+ restricted T cell epitopes, covering most common MHC variants expressed in humans and NHPs and conserved within the EBOV species. This comprehensive analysis of molecular targets of the immune response to EBOV should assist the scientific community in the evaluation of the EBOV-specific immune response in infection, therapy and vaccination.