ABSTRACT
The presence of an unusual HLA class I reactivity pattern was detected in a Caucasoid-Asian individual by PCR-sequence specific primer (PCR-SSP) typing. Exons 2 and 3 were characterized using PCR-sequence-based typing (PCR-SBT) and were found to contain a novel Cw*03 sequence, Cw*0315. In the region studied, Cw*0315 was comprised mainly of the Cw*0302 sequence, but at four positions it contained nucleotides normally only found in other HLA Cw locus alleles. These positions each resulted in an amino acid substitution.
Subject(s)
HLA-C Antigens/genetics , Base Sequence , HLA-C Antigens/immunology , Humans , Molecular Sequence Data , Mutation , Polymerase Chain Reaction , Polymorphism, Single-Stranded Conformational , Sequence AlignmentABSTRACT
The effects of the immunocompromised state after liver transplantation on the frequency of cytomegalovirus-specific cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTL) were investigated in 93 patients by using HLA class I tetrameric complexes corresponding to HLA-A*0201, HLA-B*0702, HLA-B*0801, and HLA-B*3501 refolded with peptides from the ppUL83 matrix protein. ppUL83 CTL frequencies were suppressed during the first 6 months after transplantation. Patients with >1 HLA-restricted response detected had high correlation among ppUL83 CD8(+) CTL frequencies restricted by different HLA haplotypes (Spearman's rho=.67; P<.0001). There was an inverse correlation among levels of the calcineurin inhibitor, tacrolimus, and ppUL83 CD8(+) CTL frequencies (r=-.31; P=.005), which is consistent with the presence of a large proportion (70%) of activated (CD38(+)) ppUL83 CD8(+) CTL within the population of HLA class I tetramer-positive cells.
