What are the advantages of iTAg MHC Tetramer analysis in measuring cellular immune response?
Recent technological advances have now made possible one of the long-term goals of T-cell assays, namely to identify individual T cells on the basis of the specificity of the binding to the MHC-peptide complex. The Tetramer-analysis method has already been used to study CD8+ T-cell responses in humans with acute viral infections, such as HIV. Interestingly, in these cases, Tetramer analysis has revealed that the increase of antigen-specific CD8+ T cells during the acute phase of the response is far greater than previously thought. Due to the specificity of Tetramer technology, the MHC type of the patient must be known and the specific peptide identified and isolated. However, Tetramer analysis offers many potential advantages over some of the more traditional T cells assays. This method is quantitative. It does not require the use of radioactive isotopes. It is rapid, allowing fresh blood (or tissue-derived) samples to be analyzed, and large numbers of samples to be processed. Because
