MHC Tetramer Production Services

Our core provides customized MHC/peptide tetramers for identification of antigen-specific T lymphocytes by flow cytometry. Tetramers and/or their derivatives are provided for research purposes only.

• Choices of fluorescent labels: R-phycoerythrin (PE) or allophycocyanin (APC)
• Standard product size: 100μg of MHC/peptide complex protein, which is sufficient for 400 tests (PE labeled) or 250 tests (APC labeled).
• Other product size: We may split standard vials into smaller aliquots upon request; aliquot size can be as low as 25μg each.
• Monomers: Monomeric soluble MHC/peptide complex, biotinylated and non-biotinylated, is available upon request.
• Clinical Research Grade Reagents: We provide Class I tetramers for certain clinical researches.

Special Reagents

CD8 binding-deficient MHC Class I tetramers

Containing mutations in the MHC α3 domain that ablate CD8 binding; can be used to quantitate and to sort CD8-independent T cells. 

Chimeric Tetramer

Containing MHC Human/Mouse chimeric heavy-chain.

MHC Monomers for generating TCR-like antibodies

Developing high-affinity soluble antibody molecules endowed with a TCR-like specificity toward tumor epitopes, termed TCR-like antibodies, recently became a hot topic for cancer immunotherapy studies.

Major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class I presentation of peptides to T cell receptors (TCR) on T lymphocytes is the key in the immune response. Because of their unique specificity, MHC-peptide complexes, which can be recognized by recombinant T-cell receptors (TCRs), are desirable candidates for novel immunotherapeutic approaches. However, most TCRs produced previously have affinities that are too low for target detection under normal assay conditions, and limited stability (due to their generation in a single-chain form). Therefore, the TCR-like antibodies are being developed as a new immunotherapeutic class for targeting tumor cells and mediating their specific killing, by constructing recombinant immunotoxins, fusions with cytokine molecules, or for bi-specific antibody therapy. Meanwhile, these antibodies are also valuable research reagents enabling the study of class I peptide ligand presentation and TCR-peptide-MHC interactions.

Our biotinylated or unbiotinylated monomers can be used to generate TCR-like antibodies, as well as in the affinity characterization approaches.

MHC Class I UV-cleavable monomers designed for ligand exchange

Studying multiple epitopes with traditional tetramers can be slow and impractical. Our UV-cleavable MHC monomers make this easy: the special ligand can be removed with UV light to create an ‘empty’ MHC, which can then be quickly loaded with any peptide of interest. This flexible technology allows rapid preparation of MHC multimers, even ideal for exploring low-affinity targets such as cancer or autoimmune epitopes.

• Easy to handle – Flexible for generating custom MHC tetramers
• Simple UV-exchange process – Rapidly load your peptide of interest
• No new monomer prep needed – Accelerates your experiments

Explore available MHC UV-cleavable monomers.

SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19 Tetramer Reagents

We produce a set of SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19 tetramer reagents based on published work. Epitopes were previously identified in SARS and are 100 percent conserved in SARS-CoV-2.

• HLA-A*02:01/SARS-CoV-2S.940~948 (ALNTLVKQL)
• HLA-A*02:01/SARS-CoV-2S.958~966 (VLNDILSRL)
• HLA-A*02:01/SARS-CoV-2S.978~986 (LITGRLQSL)
• HLA-A*02:01/SARS-CoV-2S.1167~1175 (RLNEVAKNL)
• HLA-A*02:01/SARS-CoV-2S.1192~1200 (NLNESLIDL)
• HLA-A*02:01/SARS-CoV-2S.1220~1228 (FIAGLIAIV)
• HLA-A*02:01/SARS-CoV-2S.269~277 (YLQPRTFLL)
• HLA-A*02:01/SARS-CoV-2N.222~230 (LLLDRLNQL)
• HLA-A*02:01/SARS-CoV-2M.61~70 (TLACFVLAAV)
• HLA-A*02:01/SARS-CoV-2S.816~826 (SFIEDLLFNKV)
• HLA-A*03:01/SARS-CoV-2S.938~947 (LSSTASALGK)
• HLA-A*24:02/SARS-CoV-2S.489~497 (YFPLQSYGF)
• H-2D(b)/SARS-CoV-2S.538~546 (CVNFNFNGL)
• H-2D(b)/SARS-CoV-2S.350~358 (VYAWNRKRI)
• H-2D(b)/SARS-CoV-2S.366~374 (SVLYNSASF)
• H-2D(b)/SARS-CoV-2S.444~452 (KVGGNYNYL)
• Mamu-A1*00101/SARS-CoV-2S.712~720 (IAIPTNFTI)
• Mamu-A1*00101/SARS-CoV-2S.1055~1063 (SAPHGVVFL)
• Mamu-A1*00101/SARS-CoV-2S.489~497 (YFPLQSYGF)
• Mamu-A1*01101/SARS-CoV-2N.322~331 (MEVTPSGTWL)

Refer to Table 1 for the current available MHC alleles.

If the requested MHC allele is not in the table or if there is other requirements, such as a specific b2-microglobulin is needed to reconstitute class I of an unusual species, the requestor must supply the cDNA. We will perform the subcloning to the appropriate vector for protein expression and additional charges may apply.

All expression plasmids containing MHC alleles will be retained at our facility and will be used for future production and distribution of tetramer reagents.

All expression plasmids containing MHC alleles will be retained at our facility and will be used for future production and distribution of tetramer reagents.

Pre-Made Common Tetramers

We specialize in custom synthesis of Class I MHC reagents and also offer a limited selection of commonly used reagents from pre-made stock. The reagents listed below are available as unbiotinylated or biotinylated monomers, or as tetramers with the indicated fluorophore options.

• Human Alleles
• Mouse Alleles

Peptide

Requestors incur the cost of peptide that is needed in the tetramer production. You can either provide your own peptide or order from us with an additional cost. If provide your own peptide, please send 10mg of it to us. HPLC chromatograph and mass spectrophotometric analysis for the peptide will also be required.