PURPOSE Vogt-Koyanagi-Harada disease (VKH) is an autoimmune disorder causing a bilateral diffuse granulomatous uveitis, often with several associated extraocular manifestations. Strong association of human leukocyte antigens (HLA) antigens with the disease has been documented. The details of all HLA class II genotypes were investigated in Japanese patients with VKH to demonstrate the immunogene...

In previous studies, the shared cancer-testis Ag, NY-ESO-1, was demonstrated to be recognized by both Abs and CD8+ T cells. Gene expression of NY-ESO-1 was detected in many tumor types, including melanoma, breast, and lung cancers, but was not found in normal tissues, with the exception of testis. In this study, we describe the identification of MHC class II-restricted T cell epitopes from NY-E...

In chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) the classical 9;22 translocation results in a BCR-ABL fusion gene, which encodes chimeric BCR-ABL fusion 210 kD oncoproteins (p210BCR-ABL). The two main p210BCR-ABL fusion variants in CML, b2a2 and b3a2 are examples of well characterized antigens expressed by malignant cells. The possibility of an immunotherapeutic approach involving the fusion part of p210BCR-...

Humanized mice expressing Human Leukocyte Antigen (HLA) class I or II transgenes have been generated, but the role of class I vs class II on human T and B cell reconstitution and function has not been investigated in detail. Herein we show that NRG (NOD.RagKO.IL2RγcKO) mice expressing HLA-DR4 molecules (DRAG mice) and those co-expressing HLA-DR4 and HLA-A2 molecules (DRAGA mice) did not differ ...

Ethnic admixtures may interfere with the definition of type 1 diabetes (T1D) risk determinants. The role of HLA, PTPN22, INS-VNTR, and CTLA4 in T1D predisposition was analyzed in Brazilian T1D patients (n = 915), with 81.7% self-reporting as white and 789 controls (65.6% white). The results were corrected for population stratification by genotyping 93 ancestry informative markers (AIMs) (BeadXp...

The development of effective cancer immunotherapies has been consistently hampered by several factors, including an inability to instigate long-term effective functional antitumor immunity. This is particularly true for immunotherapies that focus on the adoptive transfer of activated or genetically modified mature CD8+ T cells. In this study, we sought to alter and enhance long-term host immuni...