Figure 2. Schematic of the dominant HLA-A and HLA-B N-linked Glycans.
The MHCI molecules HLA-A and HLA-B carry unusually homogeneous N-glycan composition. Most glycoproteins tend to show high microheterogeneity at each N-glycosylation site, but for reasons that remain unclear, HLA-A and HLA-B molecules have been shown to contain one of these two structures most of the time. This is true for HLA-A and -B from cultured cells as well as in peripheral blood, demonstrating the universality of these findings. The functional consequences of this homogeneity is unknown.