Variable region genes of human monoclonal autoantibodies to histones H2A and H2B from a systemic lupus erythematosus patient

An antibody phage library obtained from peripheral blood lymphocytes of a systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) patient was used to isolate four monoclonal autoantibodies against histones H2A and H2B. Analysis of the variable region sequences revealed that the anti-histone monoclonal antibodies were not clonally related; they used V H genes from three different V H gene families (V H 3, V H 4, and V H 5) and distant members of the Vκ group (L25, L6, A27, and O8) in conjunction with different D and J gene segments. These observations suggest that certain gene families or segments are not critical in producing anti-histone autoantibodies in SLE. Most of the utilized V H and Vκ sequences were highly mutated and the complementarity-determining regions (CDRs) varied greatly in length. The V H region of the antibody SLEhis18 had an isoelectric point of 6.1, and 29% of the mutations were changes to acidic amino acid residues. The second CDR (CDR2) of SLEhis18 V H contained one basic and three acidic residues. Acidic residues were observed in the CDR3 regions of V H , but not V L , in all isolated clones; this is unusual, as most autoantibodies are comprised predominantly of non-acidic residues. This is the first report of a systematic sequence analysis of human anti-histone monoclonal antibodies. Our results suggest that certain V genes are not important for autoreactive specificity to histones in SLE; instead, other mechanisms such as an existence of acidic residues and somatic mutations in CDRs are required for specific binding to histones, which might play a role as a stimulatory autoantigen for the activation of autoantibody-producing B-cells and the selection of high affinity antibody.