An individual's CD8؉ -cytotoxic-T-lymphocyte (CTL) response to Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) latent cycle antigens focuses on a small number of immunodominant epitopes often presented by just one of the available HLA class I alleles; for example, HLA-A11-positive Caucasians frequently respond to two immunodominant HLA A11 epitopes, IVTDFSVIK (IVT) and AVFDRKSDAK (AVF), within the nuclear antigen EBNA3B. Here, we reexamine the spectrum of EBV strains present in the highly HLA-A11-positive Chinese population for sequence changes in these epitopes relative to the Caucasian type 1 prototype strain B95.8. The IVT epitope was altered in 61 of 64 Chinese type 1 viruses, with four different sequence variants being observed, and the AVF epitope was altered in 46 cases with six different sequence variants; by contrast, all 10 Chinese type 2 viruses retained the prototype 2 epitope sequences. All but one of the type 1 epitope variants were poorly recognized by IVT-or AVF-specific CTLs in pulse-chase assays of peptide-mediated target cell lysis. More importantly, we screened HLA-A11-positive Chinese donors carrying viruses with known epitope mutations for evidence of epitope-specific CTL memory by enzyme-linked immunospot assays: none of the type 1 variants tested, nor the type 2 prototype, appeared to be immunogenic in vivo. The data remain consistent with the possibility that, during virus-host coevolution, pressure from the host CTL-mediated immune response has given A11 epitopeloss viruses a selective advantage.The principal role of the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class I-restricted CD8ϩ -cytotoxic-T-lymphocyte (CTL) response is to control infection by intracellular pathogens, in particular viruses. This reflects the ability of such CTLs to recognize antigenic peptides, derived from the intracellular breakdown of endogenously expressed viral proteins and presented on the surface of infected cells as a complex with MHC class I molecules (25). For any one type of virus in the context of one MHC class I allele, the number of viral peptides that are presented at the surface and induce detectable responses is surprisingly small. Thus, the host CTL response even to viruses with a relatively large coding capacity is often focused on two or three immunodominant epitopes presented in the context of one or more MHC alleles (28). Consequently, for viruses which establish chronic infections and which have error-prone replication mechanisms, viral progeny carrying mutations in immunodominant epitopes may enjoy a selective advantage in the host. In humans, this is best illustrated by the evolution of CTL escape mutants of human immunodeficiency virus in infected individuals progressing to AIDS (9, 22).The situation is quite different for agents such as herpesviruses which, in contrast to the above, are genetically stable and persist in the immune host by suppressing viral antigen expression rather than by quasispeciation. Such viruses have coevolved with their host species over thousands if not millions of years (18,19), and on...