Molecular Identification of T Cells That Respond in a Primary Bulk Culture
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Molecular Identification of T Cells That Respond in a Primary Bulk Culture to a Peptide Derived from a Platelet Glycoprotein Implicated in Neonatal Alloimmune Thrombocytopenia Krystyna Maslanka, Maryam Yassai, and Jack Gorski Immunogenetics Research Section, Blood Research Institute, The Blood Center of Southeastern Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53201-2178 Abstract Among these, the platelet alloantigen system associated with surface integrin GPIIb/IIIa (␣IIb3) plays an important role in Neonatal alloimmune thrombocytopenia induced by the hu- pregnancy and transfusion related alloimmunity (1, 2). man platelet alloantigen 1a (HPA1a) is characterized by A characteristic of these alloimmune responses is the pres- generation of alloantibodies by a mother who is homozy- ence of circulating antibodies specific for the alloantigen. These gous for the HPA1b alloantigen and almost always HLA- are thought to mediate the destruction of the cells expressing DRB3*0101. The disease is viewed as B cell mediated but the alloantigen. One particular alloimmune response is inter- the linkage with HLA is indicative of a role for T cells. The esting in its HLA restriction. The GPIIb/IIIa alloantigens HPA1a and HPA1b allotypes are defined, respectively, by HPA1a and HPA1b are defined by antibodies which are sensi- Leu and Pro at amino acid 33 of the -chain of the platelet tive to the polymorphism at position 33 of the GPIIIa chain integrin GPIIbIIIa (␣IIb3). Under the assumption that the (3). Mutagenesis experiments have shown that this polymor- same polymorphism may control both the B cell epitope and phism is sufficient for inducing alloantibody recognition (4). constitute the MHC-bound peptide, we restimulated PBMC The generation of a response to HPA1a (GPIIIaLeu33) requires from a woman with an affected child with a synthetic pep- that the responder be HPA1b (GPIIIaPro33) homozygous. The tide from this polymorphic region. Molecular analysis of the resulting platelet destruction gives rise to post-transfusion responding T cell repertoire identified two T cells which thrombocytopenia purpura (PTP) or neonatal alloimmune predominated in cultures stimulated with the alloantigen thrombocytopenia (NAIT).1 Interestingly, responders are al- peptide and which were absent in cultures with the autoanti- most always HLA DRB3*0101 (5) or DQB1*02 (6). For gen peptide. In spite of the use of different V families, sequence NAIT, the relative risk for DRB3*0101 has been calculated as of the CDR3 region of the T cell receptor (TCR) -chain 141, which is of the same order as for one of the best examples revealed the presence of a shared motif, L-P-S/T. Oligonu- of an HLA-linked autoimmune disease, ankylosing spondylitis cleotide probes specific for the CDR3 sequence indicated and HLA B27. Also of interest is that the reverse response that these T cells were present in the PBMC at the highest (anti-HPA1b) is much less frequent and does not show an levels immediately after delivery of the affected infant and HLA linkage (7). their frequency dropped at later times. (J. Clin. Invest. 1996. The contribution of B cells to this response has been stud- 98:1802–1808.) Key words: alloantigen • platelet • T cell an- ied by identification of factors involved in generating the tigen receptor, beta chain • gene rearrangement • comple- epitopes on GPIIIa recognized by these cells. Not only has the mentarity determining region controlling polymorphism been identified for this response, a number of experiments have led to the concept that the B cell Introduction epitope is complex (8) and may involve contributions from various parts of the GPIIIa chain (9, 10). Alloimmunity is generally considered as an important compo- While the B cell contribution has been the subject of much nent in transplantation and the MHC is one of the most potent study, the contribution of T cells has been generally ignored. alloantigen systems. However, alloimmunity can also be a The high degree of HLA restriction in this response as well as complication of pregnancy or transfusion. While the MHC the fact that the antibodies are IgG indicate that the B cells re- again plays an important role, other antigen systems contrib- quire T cell help. In this paper, we worked under the hypothe- ute substantially. Such non-MHC antigen systems include the sis that the polymorphic region controlling the antibody polymorphic proteins expressed on other circulating cells. epitope could also function as the antigenic peptide responsi- ble for this stimulation, a hypothesis which had been sup- ported by preliminary experiments (11). We used a combina- Address correspondence to Jack Gorski, Blood Research Institute, tion of approaches to identify two likely T cell clonotypes Blood Center of S.E. Wisconsin, P.O. Box 2178, Milwaukee, WI involved in this response using the TCR -chain as a clono- 53201-2178. Phone: 414-937-6367; FAX: 414-937-6824; E-mail: typic marker. Clonotype-specific probes were used to investi- [email protected]. Krystyna Maslanka’s current address is Institute of gate the levels of these T cells at various times after pregnancy. Haematology and Blood Transfusion, Department of Serology, ul.Choci- mska 4, 00-957 Warsaw, Poland. Received for publication 29 January 1996 and accepted in revised Methods form 26 July 1996. Cells. The cells of a healthy Caucasian woman who had delivered two babies with NAIT were investigated. The woman was typed as J. Clin. Invest. © The American Society for Clinical Investigation, Inc. 0021-9738/96/10/1802/07 $2.00 1. Abbreviations used in this paper: NAIT, neonatal alloimmune Volume 98, Number 8, October 1996, 1802–1808 thrombocytopenia; TCR, T cell receptor. 1802 K. Maslanka, M. Yassai, and J. Gorski HPA-1b and HLA DRB1*02, DRB1*03, DRB3*0101. Circulating Gels were run 100 min to resolve the region corresponding to 120– anti-HPA1a antibodies were found after both the first and second 220 bp. The labeled PCR product was analyzed by Molecular Dynam- pregnancy using antigen capture ELISA. Blood samples were obtained ics FluorImager 575 (Sunnyvale, CA). under an Institutional Review Board (IRB) approved protocol. Subcloning and DNA sequencing. The TCR -chain cDNA cor- PBMC obtained from whole citrate blood were isolated by Ficoll- responding to specific spectratype bands were subcloned by perform- Hypaque (Pharmacia LKB Biotechnology Inc., Piscataway, NJ) gra- ing a separate PCR using subcloning primers. These contained an ad- dient and used throughout this procedure. PBMC were collected at ditional PstI restriction site on the BV primers or a BamHI site on the different times after delivery of the second child (6, 18, 24, 30, and C region primer. The primer sequences are: BV5.3, CTCAGGTCTG- 42 mo, respectively). CAGTTCCCTAACTATAGCTCTGAGC; BV11, GAGTCTGCA- Platelet membranes were prepared (12) from the platelet-rich GTCTCCAGAATAAGGACGGAGC; and BC, GAGCCATCA- plasma fractions collected from HPA1a and HPA1b homozygous in- GAAGCAGAGATCTGGATCCCCCA. The C region primer is dividuals. The platelet donors were unrelated to the subject of the synthesized as inverse complement of the sequence shown here. study. All blood samples were obtained with informed consent and PCR products were purified with phenol/chloroform extraction under IRB approval. followed by ethanol precipitation. After resuspension in a small vol- Culture conditions. Culture was performed using PBMC isolated ume of water, the DNA was digested with the appropriate enzymes 30 mo after delivery, in RPMI-1640 culture medium (Whittaker, and ligated into digested pGEM 3zf(f) plasmid vector (Promega Rockville, MD) supplemented with 10% heat inactivated AB pool Corp., Madison, WI). The sequence analysis was performed using human serum, 1 mM L-glutamine, 1 mM sodium pyruvate, 10 IU/ml Taq Dye Deoxy-Terminator Cycle Sequencing Kit (Applied Biosys- heparin, 4 g/ml gentamicin, 100 g/ml streptomycin, 100 g/ml pen- tems Inc., Foster City, CA). icillin and 25 mM HEPES buffer, in 6-well flat bottom plates (Costar Colony and electroblot hybridization. Probes specific for the Corp., Cambridge, MA) which were kept in incubator at 37ЊC in a hu- CDR3 of the TCR (clonotype-specific probes) were designed on the midified 5% CO2 air atmosphere. basis of the DNA sequences generated (Table I). The probe se- PBMC (106 cells/ml per well) were initially incubated with differ- quence for the BV4 clonotype is GAGGGGGGGACCTCCTACG. ent concentrations (50 M, 25 M, 12.5 M, or 2 M) of synthetic Optimal hybridization and washing conditions were determined using 32 peptides GPIIIa 26–38leu33 or GPIIIa 26–38pro33 (as negative control). Af- plasmid cloned DNA. The probes were labeled using P␥ATP and ter 7 d, the cultures were divided in two parts. To both parts, fresh ir- polynucleotide kinase and used for colony hybridization as described radiated autologous PBMC (106 cells/ml) and the same appropriate (16). Spectratypes were electroblotted from acrylamide gels onto ny- concentration of peptide were added. To one part 50 IU/ml recombi- lon membranes (0.22 mm; Magna Graph, MSI, Westboro, MA). The nant human IL-2 (Genzyme Corp., Cambridge, MA) was added and DNA was crosslinked for approximately 30 s UV using a Stratalinker culture continued for 7 more days. After 14 d, cells were harvested, UV 1800 (Stratagene Inc., La Jolla, CA), baked at 80ЊC for 60 min, washed in PBS, and used for RNA preparation. and hybridized in 50ЊC with 32P-labeled clonotype-specific probes. Peptide synthesis. The peptide GPIIIa26–38leu33 and GPIIIa26–38pro33 Hybridization was conducted in hybridization buffer (10 ϫ Denhard were synthesized on Pepsyn KA resin (Millipore Corp., Bedford, MA) solution, 5 ϫ SSC, 7% SDS, 20 mM Na2HPO4 and 100 g/ml dena- using a 9050 Pepsynthesizer (Millipore Corp.) according to the manu- tured herring sperm DNA) at 50ЊC overnight. The membranes were facture-specified protocols. The peptides were purified by reverse washed at 50ЊC twice in 10 ϫ Denhard solution, 5% SDS, 70 M phase HPLC (Beckman Instruments, San Ramon, CA) to Ͼ 90% pu- phosphate buffer, pH 7.0 and twice in 1 ϫ SSC, 1% SDS and sub- rity using a C18 column (Vydac, Hesperia, CA).