Interaction between MHC Molecules and brother of regulator of imprinting sites (BORIS) in a melanoma cell line

Abstract

Identifying the relationship between the human leukocyte antigens ( HLA), MHC class I and MHC class II with tumour antigens expressed in tumour cells may have key points in tumour immunology. If such association occurs it could be relevant to the immune regulation of antigen-mediated immunogenicity. If the intracellular tumour antigen is an immunogenic, it can potentially be presented by MHC molecules to T-cells. A direct consequence of this process is T-cell recognition and thus the development of T-cells capable of targeting the tumour. Key experiments were carried out designed to physically identify the new cancer testis (CT) antigen; BORIS (brother of regulator of imprinting site) and its potential partners. Double immunostaining technique by immunofluorescence method was applied to study a co-localization between MHC molecules (class I and II) and BORIS.  Such co-localization studies provide an insight into the intracellular distribution and association of BORIS. This piece of work aims to detect the expression of the tumour antigen of interest (BORIS) in the candidate tumour cell line (MD-MB-435), and to study the co-localisation between BORIS (a potential tumour antigen) with HLA-A,B,C and HLA-DR molecules. The results showed that the co-localization ratio between HLA-DR molecules and BORIS (34.06 %) was slightly higher than the ratio between BORIS and HLA-A,B,C molecules  (31.663 %); P < 0.05 ***. The co-localization between BORIS and MHC class I or class II molecules could highlight possible interactions between these proteins. Future work on this part of the research should be continued with different tumour cell lines.