Discovery of HLA-E-Presented Epitopes: MHC-E/Peptide Binding and T-Cell Recognition.

Understanding the interactions involved during the immunological synapse between peptide, HLA-E molecules, and TCR is crucial to effectively target protective HLA-E-restricted T-cell responses in humans. Here we describe three techniques based on the generation of MHC-E/peptide complexes (MHC-E generically includes HLA-E-like molecules in human and nonhuman species, while HLA-E specifically refers to human molecules), which allow to investigate MHC-E/peptide binding at the molecular level through binding assays and by using peptide loaded HLA-E tetramers, to detect, isolate, and study peptide-specific HLA-E-restricted human T-cells.