Abstract
When complexed with antigenic peptides, human leukocyte antigen (HLA) class I (HLA-I) molecules initiate CD8+ T cell responses via interaction with the T cell receptor (TCR) and co-receptor CD8. Peptides are generally critical for the stable cell surface expression of HLA-I molecules. However, for HLA-I alleles such as HLA-B*35:01, peptide-deficient (empty) heterodimers are thermostable and detectable on the cell surface. Additionally, peptide-deficient HLA-B*35:01 tetramers preferentially bind CD8 and to a majority of blood-derived CD8+ T cells via a CD8-dependent binding mode. Further functional studies reveal that peptide-deficient conformers of HLA-B*35:01 do not directly activate CD8+ T cells, but accumulate at the immunological synapse in antigen-induced responses, and enhance cognate peptide-induced cell adhesion and CD8+ T cell activation. Together, these findings indicate that HLA-I peptide occupancy influences CD8 binding affinity, and reveal a new set of regulators of CD8+ T cell activation, mediated by the binding of empty HLA-I to CD8.
Article and author information
Author details
Funding
NIH Office of the Director (AI044115)
- Malini Raghavan
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Ethics
Human subjects: Blood was collected from consented healthy donors for HLA genotyping and functional studies in accordance with a University of Michigan IRB approved protocol (HUM00071750).
Reviewing Editor
- Michael L Dustin, University of Oxford, United Kingdom
Publication history
- Received: March 2, 2018
- Accepted: April 23, 2018
- Accepted Manuscript published: May 9, 2018 (version 1)
- Version of Record published: June 6, 2018 (version 2)
Copyright
© 2018, Geng et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
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