Generation of a functional, soluble tapasin protein from an alternatively spliced mRNA

The loading of newly synthesised MHC class I molecules (MHCI) with peptides requires the involvement of several endoplasmic reticulum (ER)-resident cofactors including calnexin, calreticulin, transporter associated with antigen processing, ERp57 and tapasin. In the absence of tapasin, MHC I complexes are loaded with suboptimal peptides and their recognition by cytotoxic T cells raised to high-affinity, immunodominant peptide epitopes is impaired. Here, we describe the cloning and functional assessment of an alternative spliced form of tapasin. From the EST database, we obtained a partially spliced tapasin cDNA that retained introns 4-6. When transfected into the tapasin-deficient cell line 0.220, the cDNA produced an alternatively spliced tapasin transcript that contained intron 5 (74 bp). This introduced a new stop codon that terminated translation immediately before the putative transmembrane domain and led to a tapasin molecule containing the lumenal domain plus 8 extra novel amino acids at its C-terminus. This molecule promoted peptide loading of HLA-B5 in 0.220 cell line, and restored normal HLA-B5 surface expression. However, the peptides loaded onto HLA-B5 were suboptimal compared to those loaded onto HLA-B5 in the presence of wild-type tapasin.