Information was sought on the features of epithelial cells in the murine thymic medulla. The expression of major histocompatibility complex (MHC) molecules on medullary epithelium was defined by light microscopy with the aid of bone marrow chimeras and MHC-transgenic mice. A proportion of medullary epithelial cells was found to show conspicuously high expression of conventional MHC (H-2) class ...

Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC) plays a key role in immune response by presenting antigenic peptides, which are recognizable to T-cells. Identifying MHCbinding peptides is crucial to understand pathogenesis and develop corresponding vaccines. Direct identification of MHC-binding peptides by biological assays is laborious and expensive, because of the huge size (20) of potential combinati...

Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine, University of Oxford, John Radcliffe Hospital, Headington, Oxford OX3 9DS, UK Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Nebraska Medical Center, 985870 Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, Nebraska 6198-5870, USA Department of Biology, The Johns Hopkins University, 3400 North Charles Street, Baltimore, Maryland 21218, USA Correspondin...

Pathogenic mycobacteria infect macrophages where they replicate in phagosomes that minimize contact with late endosomal/lysosomal compartments. Loading of Ags to MHC class II molecules occurs in specialized compartments with late endosomal characteristics. This points to a sequestration of mycobacteria-containing phagosomes from the sites where Ags meet MHC class II molecules. Indeed, in restin...

BIG PICTURE: T cells are a critical player in the adaptative immune system, but unlike B cells whose B Cell Receptor (BCR) can interact with soluble antigen, the T cell can only see antigen in the form of short peptides that has been processed and displayed on the cell surface bound to MHC Class I and Class II molecules. Each TCR is clonotypic meaning that it has undergone the process of positi...

Major histocompatibility complex class I molecules (MHC I) help protect jawed vertebrates by binding and presenting immunogenic peptides to cytotoxic T lymphocytes. Peptides are selected from a large diversity present in the endoplasmic reticulum. However, only a limited number of peptides complement the polymorphic MHC specificity determining pockets in a way that leads to high-affinity peptid...

Tandem mass spectrometry was used to identify naturally processed peptides bound to major histocompatibility complex (MHC) I and MHC II molecules in central nervous system (CNS) of eight patients with multiple sclerosis (MS). MHC molecules were purified from autopsy CNS material by immunoaffinity chromatography with monoclonal antibody directed against HLA-A, -B, -C, and -DR. Subsequently pepti...

Tapasin is a subunit of the transporter associated with antigen processing (TAP). It associates with the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class I. We show that tapasin interacts with beta- and gamma-subunits of COPI coatomer. COPI retrieves membrane proteins from the Golgi network back to the endoplasmic reticulum (ER). The COPI subunit-associated tapasin also interacts with MHC class I m...

Tandem mass spectrometry was used to identify naturally processed peptides bound to major histocompatibility complex (MHC) I and MHC II molecules in central nervous system (CNS) of eight patients with multiple sclerosis (MS). MHC molecules were purified from autopsy CNS material by immunoaffinity chromatography with monoclonal antibody directed against HLA-A, -B, -C, and -DR. Subsequently pepti...