Antigen Society #26 Report (DR3, DR7, DQw2): Part 4: HLA-DQw2

Abstract

HLA-DQw2 was first described in 1979 by Duquesnoy et al. (1). This determinant was similar to Te 24 and to DC3 defined in 1980 and 1982 respectively (2,3). In the Eighth Workshop, DQw2 could be defined by a cluster of good reagents (4), most of them containing, however, anti-DR7 antibodies. It could then be fully confirmed that DQw2 belongs to a series of molecules distinct from DR, based on biochemistry data (5,6). In the Ninth Workshop more than 10 sera were shown to be good reagents for this specificity and the corresponding patterns had a good family segregation (7); but there was no monoclonal antibody with such a specificity (8). There was a strong association of DQw2 with DR3, Dw3 and DR7, Dw7 or Dw17. In contrast, some DR3 positive, Dw3 negative cells were associated with either DQw3, TAlO (DQw7), or with DQ blank, the latter being mostly found in Negroes, and corresponding to DRwl8 associated with DQw4. The cells DQw2 negative but DR7 positive were generally DQw3 positive, TAlO negative (DQw8), Dw11 positive and often Bw57 (9).