title: Selective steady-state and time-resolved fluorescence spectroscopy of an HLA-A2-peptide complex.
abstract: The human class I major histocompatibility complex (MHC) encoded molecule HLA-A2 loaded with the high-affinity peptide GILGRVFTL (p790), was studied by means of steady-state and picosecond fluorescence intensity and fluorescence anisotropy methods. The large number of tryptophan residues (W) (10 W/heavy chain, 2 W/beta 2m) as well as their fluorescence sensitivity to the microenvironment, determine the emission of the studied complex. The HLA-A2/peptide complex exhibits a considerable static inhomogeneous broadening (IB) of the W electronic spectra, which results in a dependence of the steady-state fluorescence spectrum on the excitation wavelength. The high concentration of W's chromophores and the spectral IB cause a directed non-radiative migration of electronic excitation energy by Foerster's mechanism from 'blue' W residues to 'red' ones. This phenomenon manifests itself in a nanosecond fluorescence spectral shift and an accelerated fluorescence depolarization at the red edge of the emission spectrum. Selective excitation at the red edge of the W absorption band (310 nm) provided a space selective reduction in the number of excited chromophores and enabled resolution of the emission of the 'red' subset of the protein's tryptophans. This avoided the non-radiative homo-energy transfer and enabled to study the fluorescence anisotropy decay kinetics of these residues without a distortion by the energy transfer (ET) process. Under these experimental conditions the fluorescence anisotropy decays practically from the limiting anisotropy value (0.3) for W in a bi-exponential process. The longer decay constant has a value larger than that expected for a global rotation of the HLA-A2/peptide complex suggesting that the protein molecules exist in an oligomeric form.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical Immunology, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel.
authors.forename: D M
authors.initials: DM
authors.lastname: Gakamsky
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Haas
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Robbins
authors.forename: J L
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Strominger
authors.forename: I
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Pecht
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D001665:Binding Sites; D005454:Fluorescence Polarization; D015789:HLA-A2 Antigen / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000378:metabolism; D006801:Humans; D008958:Models, Molecular; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010455:Peptides / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000378:metabolism; D011485:Protein Binding; D013050:Spectrometry, Fluorescence / Q000379:methods; D013997:Time Factors
chemical_list: D015789:HLA-A2 Antigen; D010455:Peptides