HLA-E: Presentation of a Broader Peptide Repertoire Impacts the Cellular Immune Response—Implications on HSCT Outcome

Figure 4

Models of noncanonical self-peptides bound to HLA-E show highly diverse confirmation resulting in distinct accessible surface areas. (a) The HLA-E crystal structure with the VMAPRTLFL (orange) peptide (PDB: 3CDG) was used as a template for modelling the peptides into the PBR of the HLA-E molecule (raspberry). (b) The SKGKIYPVGY (olive) peptide shows only minimal surface area that protrudes out the PBR compared to (c) DVHDGKVVSTHEQ (teal) that strongly forms a bulgy structure that provides large parts of its accessible surface to solvent. This is also the case for the peptides (d) LGHPDTLNQGEFKEL (marine blue) and (e) LVDSGAQVSVVHPNL (cyan).

(a)

(b)

(c)

(d)

(e)