1. HLA and autoantibodies define scleroderma subtypes and risk in African and European Americans and suggest a role for molecular mimicry.
- Author
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Gourh P, Safran SA, Alexander T, Boyden SE, Morgan ND, Shah AA, Mayes MD, Doumatey A, Bentley AR, Shriner D, Domsic RT, Medsger TA Jr, Ramos PS, Silver RM, Steen VD, Varga J, Hsu V, Saketkoo LA, Schiopu E, Khanna D, Gordon JK, Kron B, Criswell LA, Gladue H, Derk CT, Bernstein EJ, Bridges SL Jr, Shanmugam VK, Kolstad KD, Chung L, Kafaja S, Jan R, Trojanowski M, Goldberg A, Korman BD, Steinbach PJ, Chandrasekharappa SC, Mullikin JC, Adeyemo A, Rotimi C, Wigley FM, Kastner DL, Boin F, and Remmers EF
- Subjects
- Black or African American genetics, Alleles, Amino Acid Sequence genetics, Antigens, Viral genetics, Antigens, Viral immunology, Autoantigens immunology, Computational Biology, Datasets as Topic, Female, Genetic Predisposition to Disease, HLA Antigens immunology, Humans, Male, Mimiviridae immunology, Phycodnaviridae immunology, Protein Structure, Secondary genetics, Risk Assessment, Scleroderma, Systemic epidemiology, Scleroderma, Systemic immunology, Sequence Homology, Amino Acid, White People genetics, Autoantibodies immunology, Autoantigens genetics, HLA Antigens genetics, Molecular Mimicry immunology, Scleroderma, Systemic genetics
- Abstract
Systemic sclerosis (SSc) is a clinically heterogeneous autoimmune disease characterized by mutually exclusive autoantibodies directed against distinct nuclear antigens. We examined HLA associations in SSc and its autoantibody subsets in a large, newly recruited African American (AA) cohort and among European Americans (EA). In the AA population, the African ancestry-predominant HLA-DRB1 * 08:04 and HLA-DRB1 * 11:02 alleles were associated with overall SSc risk, and the HLA-DRB1 * 08:04 allele was strongly associated with the severe antifibrillarin (AFA) antibody subset of SSc (odds ratio = 7.4). These African ancestry-predominant alleles may help explain the increased frequency and severity of SSc among the AA population. In the EA population, the HLA-DPB1 * 13:01 and HLA-DRB1 * 07:01 alleles were more strongly associated with antitopoisomerase (ATA) and anticentromere antibody-positive subsets of SSc, respectively, than with overall SSc risk, emphasizing the importance of HLA in defining autoantibody subtypes. The association of the HLA-DPB1 * 13:01 allele with the ATA
+ subset of SSc in both AA and EA patients demonstrated a transancestry effect. A direct correlation between SSc prevalence and HLA-DPB1 * 13:01 allele frequency in multiple populations was observed ( r = 0.98, P = 3 × 10-6 ). Conditional analysis in the autoantibody subsets of SSc revealed several associated amino acid residues, mostly in the peptide-binding groove of the class II HLA molecules. Using HLA α/β allelic heterodimers, we bioinformatically predicted immunodominant peptides of topoisomerase 1, fibrillarin, and centromere protein A and discovered that they are homologous to viral protein sequences from the Mimiviridae and Phycodnaviridae families. Taken together, these data suggest a possible link between HLA alleles, autoantibodies, and environmental triggers in the pathogenesis of SSc., Competing Interests: Competing interest statement: M.D.M. received consulting fees from Mitsubishi Tanabe, Astellas, Boehringer Ingelheim, Gerson Lehrman Group, Smart Analyst, and Guidepoint Global. R.T.D. received consulting fees from Eicos Sciences. D.K. received consulting fees from Actelion, Bristol-Myers Squibb, CSL Behring, Inventiva, EMD Merck-Serono, Sanofi-Aventis, GlaxoSmithKline, Corbus, Cytori, UCB, Bayer, Boehringer Ingelheim, and Genentech-Roche, and research support from Bayer, Bristol-Myers Squibb, and Pfizer, and owns stock or stock options in Eicos Sciences, Inc. (CiViBioPharma, Inc.). L.A.S. received consulting fees from Axon Pharma. H.G. received consulting fees from Pfizer, AbbVie, Actelion, and Horizon Pharmaceuticals. C.T.D. received research support from Gilead, Actelion, and Cytori. V.K.S. received research support from AbbVie. E.J.B. received consulting fees from Genentech. L.C. received consulting fees or served on the board of Reata, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Boehringer-Ingelheim, Eicos, and Mitsubishi Tanabe. S.L.B. and M.J.D. are coauthors on a 2015 research article., (Copyright © 2020 the Author(s). Published by PNAS.)- Published
- 2020
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