BoLA Class II serology

Injections of peripheral blood leukocytes and mononuclear cells and subcutaneous skin transplants have been the preferred routes to produce anti-class II sera; antibodies to class II alloantigens do not frequently occur in parous sera as they do in humans. These alloimmune sera tend to be highly complex and require extensive absorption with platelets to render them operational. Without the use of animals that were defined for class II on the basis of consanguineous mating, MLR, or DNA typing, it might never have been possible to sort out the complexity of the class II alloantisera.

Despite the difficulties in producing serological typing reagents by alloimmunization, several laboratories have been successful using this approach. These reagents have been characterised in independent comparison tests and in the fourth (BoLA4) and fifth international BoLA workshops. Five class II specificities (Dw designation) were accepted by the international community. Evidence for eight others was sufficient to warrant cluster designations (Dc series). Although it has been suggested that the Dw specificities are associated predominantly with DQ products, this has not been proven formally. A recent study by Nilsson and co-workers showed that Dw3-specific antisera contained antibodies to determinants on both DQ and DR antigens. The advent of locus-specific biochemical and PCR-based DNA typing methods has diminished the emphasis on development of serological reagents for class II typing.

This text was taken from Lewin 1996, with permission from the publisher CRC Press.