Use of HLA class II tetramers in tracking antigen-specific T cells and mapping T-cell epitopes.
The highly specific interaction between major histocompatibility complex (MHC)/peptide and its cognate T-cell receptor (TCR) directs to the specificity of the T-cell response. Although the interaction affinity of individual MHC/peptide and TCR molecules is low, multimerization of the MHC/peptide complexes increases the avidity of their interaction with TCRs, and enables the complexes to be used as staining reagents for antigen-specific T cells. Different approaches are used to generate class I and class II tetramer reagents, and these reagents have been demonstrated to be useful in identifying CD8+ and CD4+ T cells, respectively. This article focuses on the uses of human lymphocyte antigen (HLA) class II tetramers in tracking antigen-specific T cells. Class II tetramers can also be used to map antigenic epitopes of known antigens through a novel peptide screening procedure known as tetramer-guided epitope mapping (TGEM). In this article, we provide a description of the methodological approach of using HLA class II tetramers in tracking and isolating T cells, and the use of class II tetramers in mapping T-cell epitopes.
Reijonen
Helena
H
Virginia Mason Research Center, 1201 Ninth Avenue, Seattle, WA 98101-2795, USA.
Kwok
William W
WW
D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D018604:Epitope Mapping / Q000379:methods*; D000939:Epitopes; D018984:Epitopes, T-Lymphocyte / Q000032:analysis* / Q000276:immunology*; D000949:Histocompatibility Antigens Class II / Q000032:analysis* / Q000737:chemistry / Q000276:immunology*; D006801:Humans; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010446:Peptide Fragments
D000939:Epitopes; D018984:Epitopes, T-Lymphocyte; D000949:Histocompatibility Antigens Class II; D010446:Peptide Fragments