Further investigations on thymopentin-like fragments of HLA-DQ and their analogs

Recently we showed that the fragments of HLA-DQ with the Thr-Pro-Gln-Arg-Gly-Asp-Val-Tyr-Thr and Gln-Arg-Gly-Asp-Val-Tyr-Thr sequences strongly suppress the immune response, while their shorter analogs, Arg-Gly-Asp-Val, Arg-Gly-Asp-Val-Tyr and Gln-Arg-Gly-Asp-Val-Tyr, show very weak stimulatory activity with respect to humoral immunological response. The fragments contain the sequence which is very similar to thymopentin (pentapeptide Arg-Lys-Asp-Val-Tyr, an active fragment (32-36) of thymopoietin, an immune system activator produced in thymi), and at the same time contains the Arg-Gly-Asp (RGD) sequence, known as an inhibitor of adhesion processes. In the present study we found that a hexapeptide: Arg-Gly-Asp-Val-Tyr-Thr is the smallest size fragment of HLA-DQ having both cellular and humoral immunosuppressive activity. We also found that linear and cyclic fragments of HLA-DQ do not affect cell line production of various cytokines, what suggests that the mechanism of interactions of these peptides with the immunological system is different as compared with most other known immunosuppressors.