The natural history of JC virus in patients with Crohn's disease is still unknown. Our study results show that JC virus latency and urine viral shedding is frequent in immunosuppressed patients with Crohn's disease. More prospective studies are needed in order to agree on possible recommendations concerning the exclusion of patients with JCV viraemia from anti-alpha4 integrin treatment.

Human papillomavirus type 16 (HPV-16) is a major cause of human cancer. Effective prophylactic vaccines are based on type-specific neutralizing antibodies. A major neutralizing epitope has been defined by the monoclonal antibody H16.V5. To investigate the importance of this epitope for overall immunogenicity of HPV-16, HPV-16 virus-like particles devoid of the H16.V5 epitope were engineered by site-directed mutagenesis of ten non-conserved, surface-exposed residues. Removal of the H16.V5-defined epitope had only a marginal effect on antigenic reactivity with antibodies in sera from infected subjects, but affected immunogenicity in experimental immunization of mice, with reduced induction of both antibody responses and CTL responses.

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