Systematic identification of minor histocompatibility antigens predicts outcomes of allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation

Abstract

T cell alloreactivity against minor histocompatibility antigens (mHAgs)—polymorphic peptides resulting from donor–recipient (D–R) disparity at sites of genetic polymorphisms—is at the core of the therapeutic effect of allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation (allo-HCT). Despite the crucial role of mHAgs in graft-versus-leukemia (GvL) and graft-versus-host disease (GvHD) reactions, it remains challenging to consistently link patient-specific mHAg repertoires to clinical outcomes. Here we devise an analytic framework to systematically identify mHAgs, including their detection on HLA class I ligandomes and functional verification of their immunogenicity. The method relies on the integration of polymorphism detection by whole-exome sequencing of germline DNA from D–R pairs with organ-specific transcriptional- and proteome-level expression. Application of this pipeline to 220 HLA-matched allo-HCT D–R pairs demonstrated that total and organ-specific mHAg load could independently predict the occurrence of acute GvHD and chronic pulmonary GvHD, respectively, and defined promising GvL targets, confirmed in a validation cohort of 58 D–R pairs, for the prevention or treatment of post-transplant disease recurrence.