Seroatlas · Human Serome Atlas

HLA-E

HLA class I histocompatibility antigen, alpha chain E

Also known as: HLAE_HUMAN

Cross-references: UniProt · Ensembl · Human Protein Atlas · GeneCards · NCBI Gene

Protein identityUniProt · HPA

UniProt accession
P13747
Gene
HLA-E
Ensembl
ENSG00000204592
Chromosome
6
Canonical length
358 aa
Protein class
Plasma proteins, Predicted membrane proteins, Predicted secreted proteins
Subcellular location
Vesicles,Plasma membrane
Secretome location
Secreted to blood

OverviewNCBI Gene

HLA-E belongs to the HLA class I heavy chain paralogues. This class I molecule is a heterodimer consisting of a heavy chain and a light chain (beta-2 microglobulin). The heavy chain is anchored in the membrane. HLA-E binds a restricted subset of peptides derived from the leader peptides of other class I molecules. The heavy chain is approximately 45 kDa and its gene contains 8 exons. Exon one encodes the leader peptide, exons 2 and 3 encode the alpha1 and alpha2 domains, which both bind the peptide, exon 4 encodes the alpha3 domain, exon 5 encodes the transmembrane region, and exons 6 and 7 encode the cytoplasmic tail. [provided by RefSeq, Jul 2008]

Canonical amino-acid sequenceUniProt

358 residues, UniProt reviewed canonical sequence.

>P13747|HLA-E
     1  MVDGTLLLLL SEALALTQTW AGSHSLKYFH TSVSRPGRGE PRFISVGYVD DTQFVRFDND
    61  AASPRMVPRA PWMEQEGSEY WDRETRSARD TAQIFRVNLR TLRGYYNQSE AGSHTLQWMH
   121  GCELGPDGRF LRGYEQFAYD GKDYLTLNED LRSWTAVDTA AQISEQKSND ASEAEHQRAY
   181  LEDTCVEWLH KYLEKGKETL LHLEPPKTHV THHPISDHEA TLRCWALGFY PAEITLTWQQ
   241  DGEGHTQDTE LVETRPAGDG TFQKWAAVVV PSGEEQRYTC HVQHEGLPEP VTLRWKPASQ
   301  PTIPIVGIIA GLVLLGSVVS GAVVAAVIWR KKSSGGKGGS YSKAEWSDSA QGSESHSL

LocalizationUniProt · AlphaFold · HPA

Whether an antibody against HLA-E 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)
0.37
Highest tissue expression
1,118 nTPM

Expression across tissuesHPA

Tissue

  • lung: 1,118 nTPM
  • spleen: 984 nTPM
  • adipose tissue: 713 nTPM
  • breast: 572 nTPM
  • skin: 503 nTPM
  • small intestine: 416 nTPM

Single-cell type

  • platelets: 272 nCPM
  • neutrophils: 207 nCPM
  • microglia: 149 nCPM
  • plasma cells: 121 nCPM
  • nk-cells: 96 nCPM
  • vascular endothelial cells: 93 nCPM

Immune cell

  • neutrophil: 1,925 nTPM
  • total PBMC: 1,442 nTPM
  • eosinophil: 1,155 nTPM
  • basophil: 1,142 nTPM
  • gdT-cell: 724 nTPM
  • memory CD8 T-cell: 709 nTPM

Brain region

  • midbrain: 63 nTPM
  • medulla oblongata: 34 nTPM
  • pons: 33 nTPM
  • white matter: 29 nTPM
  • hypothalamus: 28 nTPM
  • thalamus: 25 nTPM

ReferencesPubMed · IEDB

Publications for HLA-E 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

2 publications

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. 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)
0.61
gnomAD pLI
0.04
gnomAD missense Z
1.98
DepMap mean gene effect
-0.13
DepMap dependency class
selective

OntologyGO

Biological processes

Molecular functions

Cellular components

Protein domainsUniProt · Pfam · InterPro

KeywordsUniProt

InteractionsUniProt · HPA

Protein binding partners of HLA-E 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 HLA-E as an antibody target. Whether an autoantibody or antibody against HLA-E could matter depends on whether native HLA-E is physically reachable, whether the body needs it intact, and whether it acts in a disease-relevant tissue.

HLA-E is annotated at the cell surface, where native HLA-E 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 HLA-E as an autoantigen. Seroatlas presents hypothesis context only and does not manufacture a known-serology claim.

Canonical record: https://seroatlas.com/gene/HLA-E. Study-independent annotations aggregated from UniProt, Human Protein Atlas, PubMed, IEDB, Pfam, InterPro, Gene Ontology, AlphaFold, gnomAD, DepMap, ClinVar, TCGA. Catalog release seroatlas-reviewed-human-uniprot-20260313.

Seroatlas is the reference for exploring autoantibody and antibody serology at the human-protein level: the autoreactome and human serome, multiplex serology (HuProt, HuScan, VirScan, PhIP-Seq).

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