Complexes of two cohorts of CLIP peptides and HLA-DQ2 of the autoimmune DR3-DQ2 haplotype are poor substrates for HLA-DM.

Atypical invariant chain (Ii) CLIP fragments (CLIP2) have been found in association with HLA-DQ2 (DQ2) purified from cell lysates. We mapped the binding register of CLIP2 (Ii 96-104) to DQ2 and found proline at the P1 position, in contrast to the canonical CLIP1 (Ii 83-101) register with methionine at P1. CLIP1/2 peptides are the predominant peptide species, even for DQ2 from HLA-DM (DM)-expressing cells. We hypothesized that DQ2-CLIP1/2 might be poor substrates for DM. We measured DM-mediated exchange of CLIP and other peptides for high-affinity indicator peptides and found it is inefficient for DQ2. DM-DQ-binding and DM chaperone effects on conformation and levels of DQ are also reduced for DQ2, compared with DQ1. We suggest that the unusual interaction of DQ2 with Ii and DM may provide a basis for the known disease associations of DQ2.