Gp96, a member of HSP90 family, is a versatile molecular chaperone with various newly-discovered functions, for example to serve as a low affinity, high capacity calcium binding protein, a natural adjuvant for therapeutic cancer vaccines, a tumor rejection antigen, an immune regulator to pathological cell death. Its multi-functional and structural characteristics make it also an interesting target to develop antibody-based therapeutics. However, its low immunogenicity to mice, because of its high-sequence similarity among different species, is an obstacle to obtain valuable monoclonal antibodies (MAbs). This is a common problem for any low immunogenic proteins, whose sequences share close identity between mice and other species. Here, a new strategy of priming was employed by swine endogenous full-length gp96 and then boosting by E. coli-system heterologously expressed gp96 N-terminal fragment (N-355) to generate MAbs. Twelve different highly-specific MAbs against swine/human endogenous gp96 were successfully obtained. The binding activities of these MAbs were confirmed by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), Western blot (WB), immunofluorescence and flow cytometry analysis. This provides some important reagents for further research and potential therapeutics. The methods employed can be used for MAb production of any sequence-highly-conserved proteins between mice and swine/human (or any other species).
Leukocyte immunoglobulin-like receptors(LILRs),also called CD85s,ILTs,or LIRs,are important mediators of immune activation and tolerance that contain tandem immunoglobulin(Ig)-like folds.There are 11(in addition to two pseudogenes)LILRs in total,two with two Ig-like domains(D1D2)and the remaining nine with four Ig-like domains(D1D2D3D4).Thus far,the structural features of the D1D2 domains of LILR proteins are well defi ned,but no structures for the D3D4 domains have been reported.This is a very important fi eld to be studied as it relates to the unknown functions of the D3D4 domains,as well as their relative orientation to the D1D2 domains on the cell surface.Here,we report the crystal structures of the D3D4 domains of both LILRB1 and LILRB2.The two Ig-like domains of both LILRB1-D3D4 and LILRB2-D3D4 are arranged at an acute angle(~60°)to form a bent struc-ture,resembling the structures of natural killer inhibitory receptors.Based on these two D3D4 domain structures and previously reported D1D2/HLA I complex structures,two alternative models of full-length(four Ig-like domains)LILR molecules bound to HLA I are proposed.
Gol NamYi ShiMyongchol RyuQihui WangHao SongJun LiuJinghua YanJianxun QiGeorge F Gao
The characterization of the human T-cell receptor （TCR） repertoire has made remarkable progress, with most of the work focusing on the TCRβ chains. Here, we ana- lyzed the diversity and complexity of both the TCRa and TCRβ repertoires of three healthy donors. We found that the diversity of the TCRα repertoire is higher than that of the TCRβ repertoire, whereas the usages of the V and J genes tended to be preferential with similar TRAV and TRAJ patterns in all three donors. The V-J pairings, like the V and J gene usages, were slightly preferential. We also found that the TRDV1 gene rearranges with the majority of TRAJ genes, suggesting that TRDV1 is a shared TRAV/DV gene （TRAV42/DV1）. Moreover, we uncovered the presence of tandem TRBD （TRB D gene） usage in -2% of the productive human TCRβ CDR3 sequences.
Peipei LiuDi LiuXi YangJing Gaoai Ma3, Fangqing Zhaos, Xuyu Zhou~'2~, George F. Gao1'2'4'5~, Baoli Zhu~'2~Yan ChenXue XiaoFei LiuJing ZouJun WuJuncai MaFangqing ZhaoXuyu ZhouGeorge F. GaoBaoli Zhu
