Establishment of HLA-DR4 Transgenic Mice for the Identification of CD4+ T Cell Epitopes of Tumor-Associated Antigens
Figure 1
Transgenes encoding chimeric HLA-DR4/I-Ed molecule.
(A) Schematic diagram of mouse T cell receptor (mTCR, green), mouse CD4 (mCD4, pale green) and HLA-DR4/I-Ed chimeric molecules (orange and yellow). (B) To avoid inter-species interactions between mCD4 and HLA-DR4, the second exons of I-Edα and I-Edβ genes encoding α1 and β1 domains were substituted with those of HLA-DRA and HLA-DR4B genes (red boxes), respectively. The transgenes contain the endogenous I-Edα and I-Edβ promoter regions spanning 3.2 kb and 5.2 kb of 5'-untranslated regions, respectively. (C) WT1332-347 peptide-pulsed L-cells expressing HLA-DR4/I-Ed stimulated IFN-γ production by the WT1332-347 peptide-specific and HLA-DR4-restricted human Th clone (gated on CD4).