These studies convincingly demonstrate that T cell responses to heterologous
DENV serotypes reflect not only quantitative differences but qualitative differences
as well. Furthermore, in addition to altered cytokine production due to lower T cell
avidity for heterologous peptides, these results indicate that some peptide variants
may actually act as “superagonists,” inducing more robust cytokine production. The
results suggest that the overall T cell functional response to secondary DENV
infection will likely depend upon both HLA type and sequence of infection with
different serotypes but may still show significant variation between donors