NetMHCpan, a Method for Quantitative Predictions of Peptide Binding to Any HLA-A and -B Locus Protein of Known Sequence

Binding of peptides to Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC) molecules is the single most selective step in the recognition of pathogens by the cellular immune system. The human MHC class I system (HLA-I) is extremely polymorphic. The number of registered HLA-I molecules has now surpassed 1500. Characterizing the specificity of each separately would be a major undertaking.Here, we have drawn on a large database of known peptide-HLA-I interactions to develop a bioinformatics method, which takes both peptide and HLA sequence information into account, and generates quantitative predictions of the affinity of any peptide-HLA-I interaction. Prospective experimental validation of peptides predicted to bind to previously untested HLA-I molecules, cross-validation, and retrospective prediction of known HIV immune epitopes and endogenous presented peptides, all successfully validate this method. We further demonstrate that the method can be applied to perform a clustering analysis of MHC specificities and suggest using this clustering to select particularly informative novel MHC molecules for future biochemical and functional analysis.Encompassing all HLA molecules, this high-throughput computational method lends itself to epitope searches that are not only genome- and pathogen-wide, but also HLA-wide. Thus, it offers a truly global analysis of immune responses supporting rational development of vaccines and immunotherapy. It also promises to provide new basic insights into HLA structure-function relationships. The method is available at http://www.cbs.dtu.dk/services/NetMHCpan

Viral Proteins Interfering with Antigen Presentation Target the Major Histocompatibility Complex Class I Peptide-Loading Complex ▿

The adaptive immune system is responsible for final clearance and long lasting immunological memory of invading pathogens. ..

Real-time, high-throughput measurements of peptide-MHC-I dissociation using a scintillation proximity assay

Efficient presentation of peptide-MHC class I complexes to immune T cells depends upon stable peptide-MHC class I interactions. Theoretically, determining the rate of dissociation of a peptide-MHC class I complexes is straightforward; in practical terms, however, generating the accurate and closely timed data needed to determine the rate of dissociation is not simple. Ideally, one should use a homogenous assay involving an inexhaustible and label-free assay principle. Here, we present a homogenous, high-throughput peptide-MHC class I dissociation assay, which by and large fulfill these ideal requirements. To avoid labeling of the highly variable peptide, we labeled the invariant β2m and monitored its dissociation by a scintillation proximity assay, which has no separation steps and allows for real-time quantitative measurement of dissociation. Validating this work-around to create a virtually label-free assay, we showed that rates of peptide-MHC class I dissociation measured in this assay correlated well with rates of dissociation rates measured conventionally with labeled peptides. This assay can be used to measure the stability of any peptide-MHC Class I combination, it is reproducible and it is well suited for high-throughput screening. To exemplify this, we screened a panel of 384 high-affinity peptides binding to the MHC class I molecule, HLA-A*02:01, and observed rates of dissociation that ranged from 0.1 hours to 46 hours depending on the peptide used

Structure of a SARS coronavirus-derived peptide bound to the human major histocompatibility complex class I molecule HLA-B*1501

The three-dimensional structure of a SARS coronavirus-derived peptide, VQQESSFVM, bound to the human major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class I antigen HLA-B*1501 is presented

Tapasin facilitation of MHC-I separates closely related allomorphs, is strongly influenced by peptide length and depends on stability

Only a small fraction of the peptides inside a cell are eventually presented by HLA-I on the cell surface. The presented peptides have HLA-I allomorph-specific motifs and length restrictions. Tapasin influences HLA-I antigen presentation both qualitatively and quantitatively to different degrees depending on both peptide sequence and HLA-I allomorph. The tapasin-dependence in cellular context has been shown to correspond to the facilitation of peptide- HLA-I complex formation by the first 87 amino acids of tapasin (Tpn1- 87) (i.e., tapasin-facilitation = Bmax Tpn1-87/Bmax Ctrl) in a biochemical assay. Both peptide length and tapasin-facilitation are important for HLA-I antigen presentation and we here set out to study if these two parameters relate to each other. We used a luminescent oxygen channeling assay and seven different peptide libraries (X7- X13) to study 16 HLA-A and -B allomorphs and the results show a broad spectrum of tapasin-facilitation of HLA-I allomorphs and that HLA-A allomorphs were generally less restricted than -B allomorphs83to peptides of the classical lengths of 8-10 amino acids. Since both stability and tapasin-facilitation have been suggested as discriminators of immunogenic peptides we used a scintillation proximity based assay to study the stability of peptide-HLA-I complexes formed with peptides of different lengths. The results demonstrate an inverse correlation between tapasin-facilitation and stability valid for different peptide mixes of specific lengths but also on the level of HLA-I allomorphs, suggesting that molecules of poor stability are either not in a conformation that allows tapasin to interact or have a conformation where association has no effect