16(th) IHIW: report of the MICA project

The MICA Project of the 16th International HLA and Immunogenetics Workshop was planned to improve the detection of specific antibodies against MICA antigens that develop in organ transplant recipients. It was organized as a serum exchange with 18 laboratories located in seven countries as participants. Each laboratory used the MICA screening reagents available to them. It was found that there were four different kits of Luminex beads conjugated with MICA antigens that could be used in these experiments. They were, kit BL, produced by Rainer Blasczyk in Hannover, Germany, containing 12 MICA antigens, the kit from Gen-Probe (GP), which included 28 MICA antigens, the beads from One Lambda (OL), consisting of ten antigens, and the beads produced in the laboratory of the organizers (ZS) consisting of 11 MICA antigens. The sera were all from transplant recipients and represented a spectrum of MICA-specific antibodies that are commonly found. All laboratories accurately could recognize which sera contained MICA antibodies. None failed to recognize the negative serum that was included in one of the shipments. While there were important differences in the specificities of MICA antigens recognized by the different kits, the results in laboratories using the same beads were remarkably similar. Feedback was given to the participants, and especially to the producers of the antibody detection kits, after each set of four sera was sent, and results were collected. Certain beads were replaced and results improved as can be seen in the results of the third shipment of sera. It is important for laboratories to be able to accurately determine the specificity of antibodies against MICA to know whether the antibodies are donor specific. Although complete consensus was not attained, some important errors were corrected, and a better understanding of how to accurately determine MICA allele-specific antibodies was developed.