Soluble HLA class II concentrations in normal individuals and transplant recipients. Comparison with soluble HLA class I concentrations.

We developed an ELISA to quantify soluble HLA class II (S-HLA-II) in 702 sera obtained from normal subjects, patients with end-stage renal disease, and recipients of renal, hepatic, and cardiac transplants. Concentrations of S-HLA-II were detectable in 124 of 126 normal individuals. The distribution of normal values described a monophasic curve with a skewed distribution. In transplant recipients, there were no differences between preoperative and posttransplant values, but values in liver patients were significantly higher than in kidney patients, and values for heart patients were lowest of all groups. There were periodic variations in concentrations in individual patients, but these were unrelated to rejection, infection, or any other apparent clinical event. S-HLA-II was consistently present in the urine. All of these observations contrast with previous observations concerning soluble HLA class I (S-HLA-I) molecules, which were almost the precise reverse. It seems likely that these clear differences in S-HLA-II and S-HLA-I concentrations relate to different physiologic processes in either production, function, or elimination.