Journal
FRONTIERS IN IMMUNOLOGY
Volume 12, Issue -, Pages -Publisher
FRONTIERS MEDIA SA
DOI: 10.3389/fimmu.2021.629059
Keywords
HLA; allele-specific expression; RNA sequencing; unique molecular identifiers; gene expression
Categories
Funding
- Clinical Research Funding (EVO/VTR)
- Academy of Finland
- Tekes (the Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation)
- Vare Foundation for Pediatric Cancer Research
- Finnish Concordia Fund
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The study quantified mRNA expression levels of HLA class I and II genes from healthy individuals and found differential expression of HLA alleles. The differences in expression levels were quantifiable using RNA sequencing technology, providing novel insights into HLA research.
The HLA gene complex is the most important single genetic factor in susceptibility to most diseases with autoimmune or autoinflammatory origin and in transplantation matching. Most studies have focused on the vast allelic variation in these genes; only a few studies have explored differences in the expression levels of HLA alleles. In this study, we quantified mRNA expression levels of HLA class I and II genes from peripheral blood samples of 50 healthy individuals. The gene- and allele-specific mRNA expression was assessed using unique molecular identifiers, which enabled PCR bias removal and calculation of the number of original mRNA transcripts. We identified differences in mRNA expression between different HLA genes and alleles. Our results suggest that HLA alleles are differentially expressed and these differences in expression levels are quantifiable using RNA sequencing technology. Our method provides novel insights into HLA research, and it can be applied to quantify expression differences of HLA alleles in various tissues and to evaluate the role of this type of variation in transplantation matching and susceptibility to autoimmune diseases.
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