Relative Expression Levels of the HLA Class-I Proteins in Normal and HlV-Infected Cells

摘要

The HLA molecules are essential for immune function and have diverse clinical implications in infectious disease, autoimmunity, transplantation, cancer, and pregnancy (1-5). This study focuses on class-I HLA, comprising three classical loci (HLA-A, HLA-B, and HLA-C) and the additional nonclassical molecule HLA-E, all related by a common ancestral origin and retaining substantial sequence homology. The classical HLA class-I molecules are expressed by almost all human cells. They sample intracellular peptides and present them at the cell surface where they are recognized by CTLs, which can respond to foreign peptides. A denning feature of the classical HLA class-I is their tremendous polymorphism, concentrated in regions of the HLA molecule involved in pep tide binding (6).