Bioorthogonal Deprotection on the Dendritic Cell Surface for Chemical Control of Antigen Cross‐Presentation

The activation of CD8+ T-cells requires the uptake of exogenous polypeptide antigens and proteolytic processing of these antigens to octamer or nonamer peptides, which are loaded on MHC-I complexes and presented to the T-cell. By using an azide as a bioorthogonal protecting group rather than as a ligation handle, masked antigens were generated—antigens that are not recognized by their cognate T-cell unless they are deprotected on the cell using a Staudinger reduction.