Acta Veterinaria et Zootechnica Sinica ›› 2024, Vol. 55 ›› Issue (7): 3132-3142.doi: 10.11843/j.issn.0366-6964.2024.07.031

• Basic Veterinary Medicine • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Structure and Mechanism of ALV-J Epitope Presented by MHC Class Ⅰ Molecule BF2*0201

Yusheng JIA(), Yilin LI, Lulu MA, Ming LIAO, Manman DAI*()   

  1. National and Regional Joint Engineering Laboratory for Medicament of Zoonosis Prevention and Control, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Zoonosis Prevention and Control, College of Veterinary Medicine, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou 510642, China
  • Received:2023-10-19 Online:2024-07-23 Published:2024-07-24
  • Contact: Manman DAI E-mail:jiayusheng0922@163.com;daimanman1229@scau.edu.cn

Abstract:

MHC B2 haplotype chickens are highly resistant to avian leukosis virus infection, and this resistance may be related to the activated T cell immune response stimulated by MHC molecule presented epitopes. This study aims to elucidate the structure and mechanism of ALV-J epitope presentation by the MHC class Ⅰ molecule BF2*0201. Peptides that can bind stably to MHC Ⅰ were screened by gel filtration chromatography. The complex crystals of the peptide and MHC Ⅰ were grown in vitro using a crystal primary screening kit, and the crystal structure was resolved and analyzed using COOT, CCP4 and PYMOL. In this study, we identified two ALV-J CTL epitopes FVDFANRLI and SALQAFREV that bind stably to BF2*0201. We obtained a high quality crystal BF2*0201-SALQAFREV (SV9) grown under the conditions of 1.0 mol ·L-1 succinic acid (pH 7.0), 0.1 mol ·L-1 HEPES (pH 7.0), and 1% polyethylene glycol monomethyl ether 2000. We resolved the structure of the high-resolution (1.72 Å) BF2*0201-SV9 complex and found that the BF2*0201 antigen-binding groove exhibits weak electronegativity overall. Conserved residues were located at both ends of the antigen-binding groove, and specific amino acids gave BF2*0201 a medium-sized peptide-binding groove. The B, C, and F pockets played an important anchoring role. The residues in pockets and water molecules formed hydrogen bonds with the antigenic polypeptide to anchor it to the peptide-binding groove, and the antigenic polypeptide was in an "M"-shaped conformation. The conformational features of the prominent Gln-4 and Arg-7 residues in the SV9 epitope conformation suggested potential recognition of this site by specific TCRs. The crystal structure of BF2*0201-SV9 complex can help to elucidate the mechanism of ALV-J epitope presented by BF2*0201, which can help to explain the reason for the resistance of B2 haplotype chickens to ALV, and lay a theoretical foundation for the breeding of resistance to the disease.

Key words: MHC, BF2*0201, ALV-J, epitope presentation, crystal structure

CLC Number: