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Updated: May 26, 2026

Personalized Peptide Arrays for Detection of HLA Alloantibodies in Organ Transplantation
Published on: September 6, 2017
Type 1 diabetes-associated HLA-DQ8 transdimer accommodates a unique peptide repertoire
Menno van Lummel1, Peter A van Veelen, Arnaud Zaldumbide
1Department of Immunohematology and Blood Transfusion, Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, The Netherlands.
Abstract:
HLA-DQ2 and HLA-DQ8 are strongly predisposing haplotypes for type 1 diabetes (T1D). Yet HLA-DQ2/8 heterozygous individuals have a synergistically increased risk compared with HLA-DQ2 or HLA-DQ8 homozygote subjects that may result from the presence of a transdimer formed between the α-chain of HLA-DQ2 (DQA1*05:01) and the β-chain of HLA-DQ8 (DQB1*03:02). We generated cells exclusively expressing this transdimer (HLA-DQ8trans), characterized its peptide binding repertoire, and defined a unique transdimer-specific peptide binding motif that was found to be distinct from those of HLA-DQ2 and HLA-DQ8. This motif predicts an array of peptides of islet autoantigens as candidate T cell epitopes, many of which selectively bind to the HLA transdimer, whereas others bind to both HLA-DQ8 and transdimer with similar affinity. Our findings provide a molecular basis for the association between HLA-DQ transdimers and T1D and set the stage for rational testing of potential diabetogenic peptide epitopes.
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