Frontiers in Immunology (Jan 2020)

Protective Allele for Multiple Sclerosis HLA-DRB1*01:01 Provides Kinetic Discrimination of Myelin and Exogenous Antigenic Peptides

  • Azad Mamedov,
  • Nadezhda Vorobyeva,
  • Ioanna Filimonova,
  • Maria Zakharova,
  • Maria Zakharova,
  • Ivan Kiselev,
  • Vitalina Bashinskaya,
  • Natalia Baulina,
  • Alexey Boyko,
  • Alexey Boyko,
  • Alexander Favorov,
  • Alexander Favorov,
  • Olga Kulakova,
  • Rustam Ziganshin,
  • Ivan Smirnov,
  • Ivan Smirnov,
  • Alina Poroshina,
  • Igor Shilovskiy,
  • Musa Khaitov,
  • Yuri Sykulev,
  • Olga Favorova,
  • Valentin Vlassov,
  • Alexander Gabibov,
  • Alexander Gabibov,
  • Alexey Belogurov,
  • Alexey Belogurov

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3389/fimmu.2019.03088
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 10

Abstract

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Risk of the development of multiple sclerosis (MS) is known to be increased in individuals bearing distinct class II human leukocyte antigen (HLA) variants, whereas some of them may have a protective effect. Here we analyzed distribution of a highly polymorphous HLA-DRB1 locus in more than one thousand relapsing-remitting MS patients and healthy individuals of Russian ethnicity. Carriage of HLA-DRB1*15 and HLA-DRB1*03 alleles was associated with MS risk, whereas carriage of HLA-DRB1*01 and HLA-DRB1*11 was found to be protective. Analysis of genotypes revealed the compensatory effect of risk and resistance alleles in trans. We have identified previously unknown MBP153−161 peptide located at the C-terminus of MBP protein and MBP90−98 peptide that bound to recombinant HLA-DRB1*01:01 protein with affinity comparable to that of classical antigenic peptide 306-318 from the hemagglutinin (HA) of the influenza virus demonstrating the ability of HLA-DRB1*01:01 to present newly identified MBP153−161 and MBP90−98 peptides. Measurements of kinetic parameters of MBP and HA peptides binding to HLA-DRB1*01:01 catalyzed by HLA-DM revealed a significantly lower rate of CLIP exchange for MBP153−161 and MBP90−98 peptides as opposed to HA peptide. Analysis of the binding of chimeric MBP-HA peptides demonstrated that the observed difference between MBP153−161, MBP90−98, and HA peptide epitopes is caused by the lack of anchor residues in the C-terminal part of the MBP peptides resulting in a moderate occupation of P6/7 and P9 pockets of HLA-DRB1*01:01 by MBP153−161 and MBP90−98 peptides in contrast to HA308−316 peptide. This leads to the P1 and P4 docking failure and rapid peptide dissociation and release of empty HLA-DM–HLA-DR complex. We would like to propose that protective properties of the HLA-DRB1*01 allele could be directly linked to the ability of HLA-DRB1*01:01 to kinetically discriminate between antigenic exogenous peptides and endogenous MBP derived peptides.

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