Curr Opin Immunol 2001 Dec 1;13(6):650-656
Wucherpfennig KW.
Department of Cancer Immunology
and AIDS, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Room D1410, 44 Binney Street, 02115,
Boston, MA, USA
The structural and functional properties of HLA-DQ and -DR molecules that confer susceptibility to several common autoimmune diseases, such as type 1 diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis and multiple sclerosis, have been defined.
The relevant polymorphisms directly affect interaction with peptides, which provides strong support for the hypothesis that these diseases are peptide-antigen driven.
Several studies indicate that structural
modifications of peptides can affect MHC class II binding and/or TCR recognition
and should be considered in the analysis of T cell responses in autoimmune
diseases.
PMID: 11677085 [PubMed - as supplied
by publisher]