1. A small region on the surface of an antigen that is recognized and bound by an antibody or T cell receptor.
Usage: technical; immunology; plural of epitope

Examples

• The vaccine works by exposing the immune system to specific epitopes on the virus surface.
• Different epitopes on the same antigen can trigger responses from different antibodies.
• Researchers identified multiple epitopes that could be targeted for drug development.
• T cell epitopes differ from B cell epitopes in their structure and recognition mechanism.
• The mutation altered key epitopes, allowing the virus to evade immune detection.