HLA-DPB1 Mismatching Results in the Generation of a Full Repertoire of HLA-DPB1-Specific CD4⁺ T Cell Responses Showing Immunogenicity of all HLA-DPB1 Alleles

Clinical studies have indicated that HLA-DPB1 functions as a classical transplantation antigen in allogeneic stem cell transplantation. Mismatching for HLA-DPB1 was associated with an increased risk of graft-versus-host disease (GVHD), but also a decreased risk of disease relapse. However, specific HLA-DPB1 mismatches were associated with poor clinical outcome. It was suggested that this unfavorable effect was caused by a difference in immunogenicity between HLA-DPB1 alleles. To analyze whether immunogenicity of HLA-DPB1 mismatches could be predicted based on the presence or absence of specific amino acid sequences we developed a model to generate allo-HLA-DPB1 responses in vitro. We tested in total 48 different stimulator/responder combinations by stimulating CD4⁺ T cells from 5 HLA-DPB1 homozygous individuals with the same antigen-presenting cells transduced with different allo-HLA-DPB1 molecules. HLA-DPB1 molecules used for stimulation comprised 76% to 99% of HLA-DPB1 molecules present in different ethnic populations. We show that all HLA-DPB1 mismatches as defined by allele typing resulted in high-frequency immune responses. Furthermore, we show that crossrecognition of different HLA-DPB1 molecules is a broadly observed phenomenon. We confirm previously described patterns in crossrecognition, and demonstrate that a high degree in similarity between HLA-DPB1 molecules is predictive for crossrecognition, but not for immunogenicity.

Key Words: HLA-DPB1, Mismatch, Stem cell transplantation