Figure 3

The binding affinity of aquaporin 4 (AQP4) peptides and HLA-DQ molecules (NetMHCIIpan 3.2). (A) Comparison of binding affinity among HLA-DQA1 alleles binding to seven immunodominant AQP4 peptides. The y-axis values represent %Rank, i.e., the percentile of predicted binding affinity compared to a set of 200,000 random natural peptides that have the same amino acid length of the target peptides, thus lower %Rank showing higher binding affinity. Binding affinities were calculated for all combinations of the DQA1 and DQB1 alleles (Table 2) and the seven immunodominant AQP4 peptides (Table 1). (B) Binding affinity of immunodominant AQP4 peptides (7 peptides) and non-immunodominant AQP4 peptides (24 peptides) in the HLA-DQ molecule encoded by the DQA1*05 allele.