TY - JOUR
T1 - Characterization of Volatile Organic Compounds in Human Leukocyte Antigen Heterologous Expression Systems
T2 - A Cell's "Chemical Odor Fingerprint"
AU - Aksenov, Alexander A.
AU - Gojova, Andrea
AU - Zhao, Weixiang
AU - Morgan, Joshua T.
AU - Sankaran, Shankar
AU - Sandrock, Christian E
AU - Davis, Cristina E
PY - 2012/5/7
Y1 - 2012/5/7
N2 - The major histocompatibility complex (MHC), or human leukocyte antigen (HLA) gene-coding region in humans, plays a significant role in infectious disease response, autoimmunity, and cellular recognition. This super locus is essential in mate selection and kin recognition because of the organism-specific odor which can be perceived by other individuals. However, how the unique MHC genetic combination of an organism correlates with generation of the organism-specific odor is not well understood. In the present work, we have shown that human B-cells produce a set of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that can be measured by GC-MS. More importantly, our results show that specific HLA alleles are related to production of selected VOCs, and that this leads to a cell-specific odor "fingerprint". We used a C1R HLA class IA and B locus negative cell line, along with C1R cell lines that were stably transfected with specific A and B alleles. Our work demonstrates for the first time that HLA alleles can directly influence production of specific odor compounds at the cellular level. Given that the resulting odor fingerprint depends on expression of specific HLA sequences, it may yield information on unique human scent profiles, composition of exhaled breath, as well as immune response states in future studies.
AB - The major histocompatibility complex (MHC), or human leukocyte antigen (HLA) gene-coding region in humans, plays a significant role in infectious disease response, autoimmunity, and cellular recognition. This super locus is essential in mate selection and kin recognition because of the organism-specific odor which can be perceived by other individuals. However, how the unique MHC genetic combination of an organism correlates with generation of the organism-specific odor is not well understood. In the present work, we have shown that human B-cells produce a set of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that can be measured by GC-MS. More importantly, our results show that specific HLA alleles are related to production of selected VOCs, and that this leads to a cell-specific odor "fingerprint". We used a C1R HLA class IA and B locus negative cell line, along with C1R cell lines that were stably transfected with specific A and B alleles. Our work demonstrates for the first time that HLA alleles can directly influence production of specific odor compounds at the cellular level. Given that the resulting odor fingerprint depends on expression of specific HLA sequences, it may yield information on unique human scent profiles, composition of exhaled breath, as well as immune response states in future studies.
KW - Breath analysis
KW - Gas chromatography
KW - Human leukocyte antigen
KW - Human odor
KW - Volatile organic compounds
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84860262022&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=84860262022&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1002/cbic.201200011
DO - 10.1002/cbic.201200011
M3 - Article
C2 - 22488873
AN - SCOPUS:84860262022
VL - 13
SP - 1053
EP - 1059
JO - ChemBioChem
JF - ChemBioChem
SN - 1439-4227
IS - 7
ER -