CD74
HLA class II histocompatibility antigen gamma chain
Also known as: CLIP, DHLAG, HG2A_HUMAN
Cross-references: UniProt · Ensembl · Human Protein Atlas · GeneCards · NCBI Gene
Protein identityUniProt · HPA
- UniProt accession
- P04233
- Gene
- CD74
- Ensembl
- ENSG00000019582
- Chromosome
- 5
- Canonical length
- 296 aa
- Protein class
- Cancer-related genes, CD markers, Disease related genes, Potential drug targets, Predicted membrane proteins, Transporters
- Subcellular location
- Golgi apparatus
- Secretome location
- Secreted to blood
- Quaternary structure
- Homotrimer
OverviewNCBI Gene
The protein encoded by this gene associates with class II major histocompatibility complex (MHC) and is an important chaperone that regulates antigen presentation for immune response. It also serves as cell surface receptor for the cytokine macrophage migration inhibitory factor (MIF) which, when bound to the encoded protein, initiates survival pathways and cell proliferation. This protein also interacts with amyloid precursor protein (APP) and suppresses the production of amyloid beta (Abeta). Multiple alternatively spliced transcript variants encoding different isoforms have been identified. [provided by RefSeq, Aug 2011]
Canonical amino-acid sequenceUniProt
296 residues, UniProt reviewed canonical sequence.
>P04233|CD74
1 MHRRRSRSCR EDQKPVMDDQ RDLISNNEQL PMLGRRPGAP ESKCSRGALY TGFSILVTLL
61 LAGQATTAYF LYQQQGRLDK LTVTSQNLQL ENLRMKLPKP PKPVSKMRMA TPLLMQALPM
121 GALPQGPMQN ATKYGNMTED HVMHLLQNAD PLKVYPPLKG SFPENLRHLK NTMETIDWKV
181 FESWMHHWLL FEMSRHSLEQ KPTDAPPKVL TKCQEEVSHI PAVHPGSFRP KCDENGNYLP
241 LQCYGSIGYC WCVFPNGTEV PNTRSRGHHN CSESLELEDP SSGLGVTKQD LGPVPMLocalizationUniProt · AlphaFold · HPA
Whether an antibody against CD74 can act on the native protein depends on physical access: surface and secreted proteins are reachable by circulating antibodies, intracellular proteins usually are not.
- Antibody reachability
- Cell surface
- Secreted
- No
- Transmembrane segments
- 1
- Mean surface accessibility (rSASA)
- 0.56
- Highest tissue expression
- 4,925 nTPM
Expression across tissuesHPA
Tissue
- tonsil: 4,925 nTPM
- lymph node: 4,695 nTPM
- spleen: 4,646 nTPM
- lung: 3,693 nTPM
- appendix: 2,625 nTPM
- small intestine: 2,357 nTPM
Single-cell type
- cdc: 14,450 nCPM
- macrophages: 5,933 nCPM
- kupffer cells: 5,171 nCPM
- enterocytes: 4,957 nCPM
- pdcs: 4,090 nCPM
- b-cells: 3,923 nCPM
Immune cell
- naive B-cell: 28,193 nTPM
- memory B-cell: 27,121 nTPM
- myeloid DC: 23,966 nTPM
- total PBMC: 17,862 nTPM
- plasmacytoid DC: 17,016 nTPM
- intermediate monocyte: 16,175 nTPM
Brain region
- white matter: 1,390 nTPM
- medulla oblongata: 1,001 nTPM
- spinal cord: 808 nTPM
- thalamus: 795 nTPM
- hypothalamus: 780 nTPM
- pons: 654 nTPM
DiseaseUniProt · ClinVar · IEDB · PubMed
Four sources answering four different questions about CD74.
Disease | ImmuneIEDB
Conditions an epitope on CD74 was assayed in.
- colon adenocarcinoma T cell
- myasthenia gravis T cell
- celiac disease T cell
Disease | AutoantibodyPubMed
Conditions in which antibodies against CD74 are reported. Each links to that disease's full target list.
Showing 2 of 4 — disease pages carrying at least 10 antigens.
ReferencesPubMed · IEDB
Publications for CD74 from three distinct lines of evidence, kept separate because they answer different questions: whether antibodies are directed at the protein, whether a B-cell epitope has been mapped on it, and whether a T-cell epitope has. Each is labelled with its source.
Reference: AutoantibodyPubMed
20 publications
- Autoimmune antibodies correlate with immune checkpoint therapy-induced toxicities.
2019 · Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A · RCR 6.3 · 182 citations - Autoantibodies against CD74 in spondyloarthritis.
2014 · Ann Rheum Dis · RCR 2.7 · 77 citations - High prevalence of anti-CD74 antibodies specific for the HLA class II-associated invariant chain peptide (CLIP) in patients with axial spondyloarthritis.
2014 · Ann Rheum Dis · RCR 2.1 · 65 citations - Sensitivity and Specificity of Autoantibodies Against CD74 in Nonradiographic Axial Spondyloarthritis.
2019 · Arthritis Rheumatol · RCR 1.3 · 28 citations - Added Value of Anti-CD74 Autoantibodies in Axial SpondyloArthritis in a Population With Low HLA-B27 Prevalence.
2019 · Front Immunol · RCR 1.2 · 22 citations
Show 15 more
- Anti-CD74 IgA autoantibodies in radiographic axial spondyloarthritis: a longitudinal Swedish study.
2021 · Rheumatology (Oxford) · RCR 1.2 · 15 citations - Anti-CD74 antibodies in spondyloarthritis: A systematic review and meta-analysis.
2021 · Semin Arthritis Rheum · RCR 1.1 · 16 citations - Predictive value of CXCL10 for the occurrence of immune-related adverse events in patient with renal cell carcinoma.
2023 · Microbiol Immunol · RCR 1 · 10 citations - Diagnostic value of anti-CD74 antibodies in early and late axial spondyloarthritis and its relationship to disease activity.
2021 · Rheumatology (Oxford) · RCR 0.9 · 12 citations - Autoantibodies in Spondyloarthritis, Focusing on Anti-CD74 Antibodies.
2019 · Front Immunol · RCR 0.8 · 17 citations - CD74 auto-antibodies display little clinical value in Chinese Han population with axial spondyloarthritis.
2020 · Medicine (Baltimore) · RCR 0.6 · 9 citations - CD74 is a T cell antigen in spondyloarthritis.
2020 · Clin Exp Rheumatol · RCR 0.6 · 12 citations - Macrophage migration inhibitory factor (MIF) and IgA anti CD74 antibodies in Indian patients with enthesitis-related arthritis category of Juvenile idiopathic arthritis.
2023 · Rheumatol Int · RCR 0.6 · 4 citations - Impaired proteolysis by SPPL2a causes CD74 fragment accumulation that can be recognized by anti-CD74 autoantibodies in human ankylosing spondylitis.
2020 · Eur J Immunol · RCR 0.4 · 9 citations - [The clinical diagnostic significance of auto antibodies to CD74 at axial spondylarthritis.].
2018 · Klin Lab Diagn · RCR 0.1 · 2 citations - Anti-CD74 autoantibodies in axial spondyloarthritis as biomarkers for activity and severity of disease but not for tumour necrosis factor inhibitor retention: data from the Swiss Clinical Quality Management in rheumatic diseases cohort.
2025 · Clin Rheumatol · 4 citations - Anti-CD74 IgA as a potential biomarker in axial spondyloarthritis: diagnostic utility and clinical implications.
2026 · Clin Rheumatol · 1 citations - CD74-Targeting Antibody-Drug Conjugate Enhances Immunosuppression of Glucocorticoid in Systemic Lupus Erythematosus.
2025 · Int J Mol Sci - IgA anti-CD74 autoantibodies are associated with treatment escalation in peripheral psoriatic arthritis.
2026 · Front Immunol - Correction: IgA anti-CD74 autoantibodies are associated with treatment escalation in peripheral psoriatic arthritis.
2026 · Front Immunol
Reference: T cellIEDB
3 publications
- Antigen Identification for Orphan T Cell Receptors Expressed on Tumor-Infiltrating Lymphocytes.
2018 · Cell · RCR 6.3 · 223 citations - Prominent T-Cell Responses against the Acetylcholine Receptor ε Subunit in Myasthenia Gravis.
2019 · Neurol Res Int · RCR 0 · 1 citations - A naturally selected αβ T cell receptor binds HLA-DQ2 molecules without co-contacting the presented peptide.
2025 · Nat Commun · 3 citations
Sources: PubMed — antigen-level antibody evidence from a custom retrieval. Records matching a controlled set of autoantibody terms (the MeSH descriptors Autoantibodies and Autoantigens, with title and abstract term variants) were obtained through NCBI E-utilities, and their titles and abstracts parsed for constructions that direct an antibody at a named protein rather than for co-occurrence. Captured names were resolved against UniProt nomenclature and each antigen adjudicated individually against the source text. IEDB — curated epitope assays from the Immune Epitope Database (Vita et al., Nucleic Acids Research 2019). Bibliographic records from PubMed and MeSH, U.S. National Library of Medicine; citation metrics from NIH iCite (Hutchins et al., PLoS Biology 2016). Titles link to PubMed; abstracts are not reproduced here. The NLM does not endorse this analysis.
Genetic constraint and essentialitygnomAD · DepMap
Does the body need this protein intact? Low LOEUF or a strong DepMap dependency means loss or blockade of the protein is likely to be felt.
- gnomAD LOEUF (loss-of-function intolerance)
- 0.56
- gnomAD pLI
- 0.25
- gnomAD missense Z
- 1.4
- DepMap mean gene effect
- 0.02
- DepMap dependency class
- selective
Cancer expressionTCGA
Across TCGA tumor cohorts, this protein is over-expressed in roughly 5% of surveyed tumor types (aggregate summary; per-cohort expression, alteration, and survival load in the interactive view).
OntologyGO
Biological processes
- antigen processing and presentation
- antigen processing and presentation of endogenous antigen
- antigen processing and presentation of exogenous peptide antigen via MHC class II
- host-mediated suppression of symbiont invasion
- immunoglobulin mediated immune response
- intracellular protein transport
- negative regulation of apoptotic process
- negative regulation of cell migration
- negative regulation of DNA damage response, signal transduction by p53 class mediator
- negative regulation of intrinsic apoptotic signaling pathway in response to DNA damage by p53 class mediator
- negative regulation of mature B cell apoptotic process
- negative regulation of T cell differentiation
- negative thymic T cell selection
- positive regulation of B cell proliferation
- positive regulation of canonical NF-kappaB signal transduction
- positive regulation of chemokine (C-X-C motif) ligand 2 production
- positive regulation of chemokine production
- positive regulation of cytokine-mediated signaling pathway
- positive regulation of dendritic cell antigen processing and presentation
- positive regulation of ERK1 and ERK2 cascade
- positive regulation of fibroblast proliferation
- positive regulation of gene expression
- positive regulation of interleukin-6 production
- positive regulation of interleukin-8 production
- positive regulation of macrophage cytokine production
- positive regulation of macrophage migration inhibitory factor signaling pathway
- positive regulation of monocyte differentiation
- positive regulation of neutrophil chemotaxis
- positive regulation of prostaglandin biosynthetic process
- positive regulation of T cell differentiation
- positive regulation of type 2 immune response
- positive thymic T cell selection
- prostaglandin biosynthetic process
- protein stabilization
- protein-containing complex assembly
- regulation of macrophage activation
- response to type II interferon
- T cell activation involved in immune response
- T cell selection
- macrophage migration inhibitory factor signaling pathway
- negative regulation of peptide secretion
- protein trimerization
Molecular functions
- amyloid-beta binding
- CD4 receptor binding
- cytokine binding
- cytokine receptor activity
- identical protein binding
- macrophage migration inhibitory factor binding
- MHC class II protein binding
- MHC class II protein complex binding
- nitric-oxide synthase binding
- protein folding chaperone
- MHC class II protein binding, via antigen binding groove
Cellular components
- cell surface
- clathrin-coated endocytic vesicle membrane
- cytoplasm
- endocytic vesicle membrane
- ER to Golgi transport vesicle membrane
- external side of plasma membrane
- extracellular exosome
- Golgi membrane
- late endosome
- lumenal side of endoplasmic reticulum membrane
- lysosomal lumen
- lysosomal membrane
- lysosome
- macrophage migration inhibitory factor receptor complex
- membrane
- MHC class II protein complex
- multivesicular body
- nucleus
- plasma membrane
- protein-containing complex
- trans-Golgi network membrane
- transport vesicle membrane
- vacuole
- NOS2-CD74 complex
Protein domainsUniProt · Pfam · InterPro
- Thyroglobulin type-1
- Thyroglobulin type-1 superfamily
- MHC Class II Gamma Chain/Thyroglobulin
- Thyroglobulin type-1 repeat
- MHC class II-associated invariant chain, trimerisation
- MHC class II-associated invariant chain/CLIP, MHC II-interacting
- MHC class II-associated invariant chain
- MHC class II-associated invariant chain, trimerisation domain superfamily
- HLA class II histocompatibility antigen, gamma subunit
- Class II MHC-associated invariant chain trimerisation domain
- CLIP, MHC2 interacting
KeywordsUniProt
InteractionsUniProt · HPA
Protein binding partners of CD74 in the human serome: UniProt-annotated complex subunits plus reported interactors. Each links to its own Seroatlas record.
Antibody and autoantibody relevanceSeroatlas analysis
Seroatlas reads CD74 as an antibody target. Whether an autoantibody or antibody against CD74 could matter depends on whether native CD74 is physically reachable, whether the body needs it intact, and whether it acts in a disease-relevant tissue.
CD74 is annotated at the cell surface, where native CD74 is exposed to circulating antibodies and is a prime autoantibody target that could block, deplete, or overstimulate it.
Annotation status
The present source text does not explicitly label CD74 as an autoantigen. Seroatlas presents hypothesis context only and does not manufacture a known-serology claim.
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