Project description:Rapid advances in biochemical technologies have enabled several strategies for typing candidate HLA alleles, but linking them into a single MHC haplotype structure remains challenging. Here we have developed a multi-loci haplotype phasing technique and demonstrate its utility towards phasing of MHC and KIR loci in human samples. We accurately (~99%) reconstruct the complete haplotypes for over 90% of sequence variants spanning the 4-megabase region of these two loci. By haplotyping a majority of coding and non-coding alleles at the MHC and KIR loci in a single assay, this method has the potential to assist transplantation matching and facilitate investigation of the genetic basis of human immunity and disease. Complete haplotype phasing of 2 loci (MHC and KIR) in 1 human cell line.
Project description:Uterine NK cells (uNK cells) form a distinct immune cell population in the endometrium and decidua. Here, we FACS-sorted KIR-CD39-,KIR+CD39- and KIR+CD39+ uNK cells from decidual samples.
Project description:Rapid advances in biochemical technologies have enabled several strategies for typing candidate HLA alleles, but linking them into a single MHC haplotype structure remains challenging. Here we have developed a multi-loci haplotype phasing technique and demonstrate its utility towards phasing of MHC and KIR loci in human samples. We accurately (~99%) reconstruct the complete haplotypes for over 90% of sequence variants spanning the 4-megabase region of these two loci. By haplotyping a majority of coding and non-coding alleles at the MHC and KIR loci in a single assay, this method has the potential to assist transplantation matching and facilitate investigation of the genetic basis of human immunity and disease.
Project description:Previous reports show that Ly49+CD8+ T cells can suppress autoimmunity in mouse models of autoimmune diseases. Here we find a markedly increased frequency of CD8+ T cells expressing inhibitory Killer cell Immunoglobulin like Receptors (KIR), the human equivalents of the Ly49 family, in the blood and inflamed tissues of various human autoimmune diseases. Moreover, KIR+CD8+ T cells can efficiently eliminate pathogenic gliadin-specific CD4+ T cells from Celiac disease (CeD) patients’ leukocytes in vitro. Furthermore, we observe elevated levels of KIR+CD8+ T cells, but not CD4+ regulatory T cells, in COVID-19 and influenza-infected patients, and correlate with disease severity and vasculitis in COVID-19. Expanded KIR+CD8+ T cells from these different diseases display shared phenotypes and similar T cell receptor sequences. These results characterize a regulatory CD8+ T cell subset in humans, broadly active in both autoimmune and infectious diseases, which we hypothesize functions to control self-reactive or otherwise pathogenic T cells.
Project description:KIR+ CD8 T cells (Live CD3+CD56-TCRab+CD8+KIR+ cells) were sorted from the blood of healthy subjects (N=10) and patients with MS (N=2), SLE (N=6), or CeD (N=5) and subjected to single-cell RNA-seq analysis by Smart-seq2. In parallel, we also analyzed their T-cell receptor (TCR) α and β sequences. Unsupervised clustering of these KIR+CD8+ T cells by Seurat identified six clusters, with Clusters 1 to 3 mostly containing expanded KIR+CD8+ T cells (≥2 cells expressing same TCR) and Clusters 5 and 6 consisting of unexpanded cells expressing unique TCRs. There are common features shared by KIR+CD8+ T cells from healthy subjects and different diseases, yet there is also heterogeneity (i.e., upregulated type I IFN signaling and glycolysis in Clusters 2 and 3) associated with different diseases or treatments.