Dr Nicola Ternette

Research

T-cell mediated immunity is reliant on the nature of the pathogen-specific peptide pool presented on the surface of the infected cell. The diversity of this epitope presentation determines the quality of the immunological response. Especially in vaccine development, characterization of epitope production and efficiency of presentation is highly relevant.

Our research focuses on qualitative and quantitative characterization of the cellular immunopeptidome in the context of HIV-1 infection by mass spectrometry. In particular, we are interested in thecharacterization of epitope pools generated by HIV-1 T-cell vaccines in order to optimize vaccine design and efficacy.

Key Publications

Label-free quantitative proteomics reveals regulation of interferon-induced protein with tetratricopeptide repeats 3 (IFIT3) and 5'-3'-exoribonuclease 2 (XRN2) during respiratory syncytial virus infection. Ternette N, Wright C, Kramer HB, Altun M, Kessler BM. Virol J. 2011 Sep 20;8(1):442.

Comparative evaluation of label-free SINQ normalized spectral index quantitation in the central proteomics facilities pipeline. Trudgian DC, Ridlova G, Fischer R, Mackeen MM, Ternette N, Acuto O, Kessler BM, Thomas B. Proteomics. 2011 Jul;11(14):2790-7.

Protective efficacy and immunogenicity of an adenoviral vector vaccine encoding the codon-optimized F protein of respiratory syncytial virus. Kohlmann R, Schwannecke S, Tippler B, Ternette N, Temchura VV, Tenbusch M, Uberla K, Grunwald T. J Virol. 2009 Dec;83(23):12601-10.

Immunogenicity and efficacy of codon optimized DNA vaccines encoding the F-protein of respiratory syncytial virus. Ternette N, Tippler B, Uberla K, Grunwald T. Vaccine. 2007 Oct 10;25(41):7271-9.

Expression of RNA virus proteins by RNA polymerase II dependent expression plasmids is hindered at multiple steps. Ternette N, Stefanou D, Kuate S, Uberla K, Grunwald T. Virol J. 2007 Jun 5;4:51.