Submitted December 7, 2007
Accepted March 7, 2008
Beyond the increasing complexity of the immunomodulatory HLA-G molecule
Edgardo D. Carosella, Benoit Favier, Nathalie Rouas-Freiss, Philippe Moreau, and Joel LeMaoult*
CEA, I²BM, Service de Recherches en Hemato-Immunologie, CEA, Paris, France
* Corresponding author; email: joel.lemaoult{at}cea.fr.
HLA-G is a non-classical MHC class I molecule which functions as an immuno-modulatory molecule capable of protecting fetal tissues from the maternal immune system. The relevance of HLA-G in other contexts was investigated soon afterwards. Numerous studies have sought and some have shown the relevance of HLA-G in pathological conditions, such as transplantation, autoimmunity, and cancer and haematological malignancies. One of the main goals of the current research on HLA-G is now to use it in the clinic, either for diagnosis, or as a therapeutic tool/target. For this, precise knowledge on the nature and functions of HLA-G is critical. We highlight here what we consider are recent key basic findings on the immuno-modulatory function of HLA-G. These strengthen the case for considering HLA-G as clinically relevant.
