Mutually exclusive T-cell receptor induction and differential susceptibility to human immunodeficiency virus type 1 mutational escape associated with a two-amino-acid difference between HLA class I subtypes.
Yu XG., Lichterfeld M., Chetty S., Williams KL., Mui SK., Miura T., Frahm N., Feeney ME., Tang Y., Pereyra F., Labute MX., Pfafferott K., Leslie A., Crawford H., Allgaier R., Hildebrand W., Kaslow R., Brander C., Allen TM., Rosenberg ES., Kiepiela P., Vajpayee M., Goepfert PA., Altfeld M., Goulder PJR., Walker BD.
The relative contributions of HLA alleles and T-cell receptors (TCRs) to the prevention of mutational viral escape are unclear. Here, we examined human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1)-specific CD8(+) T-cell responses restricted by two closely related HLA class I alleles, B*5701 and B*5703, that differ by two amino acids but are both associated with a dominant response to the same HIV-1 Gag epitope KF11 (KAFSPEVIPMF). When this epitope is presented by HLA-B*5701, it induces a TCR repertoire that is highly conserved among individuals, cross-recognizes viral epitope variants, and is rarely associated with mutational escape. In contrast, KF11 presented by HLA-B*5703 induces an entirely different, more heterogeneous TCR beta-chain repertoire that fails to recognize specific KF11 escape variants which frequently arise in clade C-infected HLA-B*5703(+) individuals. These data show the influence of HLA allele subtypes on TCR selection and indicate that extensive TCR diversity is not a prerequisite to prevention of allowable viral mutations.