Abstract
In contrast to activated human T cells, activated mouse T cells fail to express MHC class II molecules (MHC-II) at their cell surface. This is because mouse T cells hardly produce mRNA encoding the MHC-II molecules I-A and I-E, due to severely impaired expression levels upon T-cell activation of the mhc2ta gene, encoding the class II transactivator (CIITA). In humans, activated T cells express exclusively the CIITA promoter III (CIITA-PIII) isoform, which results in cell surface expression of all MHC-II isotypes (HLA-DR, -DP and -DQ). In this study, we demonstrate that methylation of CIITA-PIII contributes to the failure of mouse T cells to transcribe the mhc2ta and the resulting I-A/E genes, explaining the lack of I-A/E molecule expression at the cell surface following activation.
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Abbreviations
- CIITA:
-
Class II transactivator
- CIITA-PIII:
-
CIITA promoter III
- 5-AZA-dC:
-
5′-AZA-2′-deoxycytidine
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Acknowledgements
This research is supported by the Dutch Cancer Society (grants 98-1732 and 03-2798 to PvdE) and a Leiden University Medical Center research development grant.
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Schooten, E., Klous, P., van den Elsen, P.J. et al. Lack of MHC-II expression in activated mouse T cells correlates with DNA methylation at the CIITA-PIII region. Immunogenetics 57, 795–799 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00251-005-0051-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00251-005-0051-8