We are pleased to announce the availability of custom-made class II MHC tetramers. These molecules are produced in mammalian cells.

In some cases, the MHC allele is expressed with a human CLIP peptide tethered to the beta chain via a cleavable linker sequence. To synthesize tetramers, the hCLIP peptide is cleaved off and exchanged with the client's peptide of interest. The client must provide 1 mg of the peptide of interest, and the production of these reagents takes about two weeks. Currently there are five human alleles and one chimpanzee allele for which we can offer this type of service. All of the human tetramers are provided with the DRA1*0101 alpha chain.

DRB1*0101
DRB1*0401
DRB1*1501
DRB5*0101
Patr-DRB5*0102

In other cases, we synthesize the MHC allele with the client's epitope peptide tethered to the beta chain instead of the hCLIP peptide. The client is not required to provide a peptide sample. However, the production of these tetramer reagents can take several months, since a new cell line expressing the MHC allele with the tethered peptide must be generated for each uniqure request. Currently there are nine mouse, two chimpanzee and three human alleles for which we can offer this type of service.

I-A(b)
I-A(d)
I-A(g7)
I-A(k)
I-A(q)
I-A(s)
I-A(u)
I-E(d)
I-E(k)
I-E(u)
Patr-DRB1*0701
Patr-DRB1*1001
DP1*0401
DQB1*05
DRB1*0301
DRB1*0701
DRB1*1401

In addition, a human CLIP peptide-containing negative control reagent will be included with all orders.

If there are other alleles your lab would like to see included in the our class II production pipeline, please contact the facility manager.