China Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Medicine ›› 2024, Vol. 51 ›› Issue (1): 242-254.doi: 10.16431/j.cnki.1671-7236.2024.01.025

• Preventive Veterinary Medicine • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Research Progress on the Relationship Between the Molecular Structure of Chicken MHC and Disease Resistance

JIA Yusheng, LIAO Ming, DAI Manman   

  1. College of Veterinary Medicine, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou 510642, China
  • Revised:2023-09-04 Online:2024-01-05 Published:2023-12-27

Abstract: The major histocompatibility complex (MHC), a crucial component of the chicken immune system, is primarily responsible for presenting antigenic epitopes to specific T lymphocytes and inducing immune responses.The chicken MHC expresses an MHC class Ⅰ molecule known as BF2 and an MHC class Ⅱ molecule known as BLB2.The MHC class Ⅰ molecule binds to peptides from cytoplasmic proteins, while the MHC class Ⅱ molecule binds to peptides from intracellular vesicles and extracellular regions.The polymorphism of MHC alleles is important for the spatial structure of the molecules and the characteristics of bound peptides.Due to MHC allelic differences, different haplotypes of MHC have various peptide-binding motifs.This variance further affects the number of antigenic peptides presented by MHC molecules and the strength of the activated T cell immune response, ultimately resulting in resistance or susceptibility to the same pathogen among different chicken strains.In comparison to human MHC molecules, the compact and simple chicken MHC expresses one single class Ⅰ molecule, and this nature can determine the resistance to certain pathogens in chicken. To gain a better understanding of the role of chicken MHC molecules in the process of viral infection and the mechanisms of disease resistance, it is essential to decipher their structure and conduct functional studies.The author primarily outlines the structural characteristics of chicken MHC molecules and compares the relationship between structural differences among different haplotypes of MHC molecules and disease resistance.Finally, the identification of chicken MHC peptide-binding motifs and Avian influenza virus antigenic peptides are summarized.This work lays the foundation for a deeper comprehension of the mechanism of MHC molecules present peptides to T lymphocytes and the development of T cell epitope vaccines.

Key words: chicken; major histocompatibility complex (MHC); structure; disease resistance

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