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Published on: May 6, 2019
The emerging role of HLA-E-restricted CD8+ T lymphocytes in the adaptive immune response to pathogens and tumors
Gabriella Pietra1, Chiara Romagnani, Claudia Manzini
1Dipartimento di Medicina Sperimentale and Centro di Eccellenza per le Ricerche Biomediche, Università degli Studi di Genova, 16132 Genova, Italy.
Abstract:
Human leukocyte antigen (HLA)-E is a nonclassical major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class I molecule of limited sequence variability that is expressed by most tissues albeit at low levels. HLA-E has been first described as the ligand of CD94/NKG2 receptors expressed mainly by natural killer (NK) cells, thus confining its role to the regulation of NK-cell function. However, recent evidences obtained by our and other groups indicate that HLA-E complexed with peptides can interact with alphabeta T-cell receptor (TCR) expressed on CD8(+) T cells. Although, HLA-E displays a selective preference for nonameric peptides, derived from the leader sequence of various HLA class I alleles, several reports indicate that it can present also "noncanonical" peptides derived from both stress-related and pathogen-associated proteins. Because HLA-E displays binding specificity for innate CD94/NKG2 receptors, as well as all the features of an antigen-presenting molecule, its role in both natural and acquired immune responses has recently been re-evaluated.
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