How a single T cell receptor recognizes both self and foreign MHC

alpha beta T cell receptors (TCRs) can crossreact with both self- and foreign- major histocompatibility complex (MHC) proteins in an enigmatic phenomenon termed alloreactivity. Here we present the 2.35 angstrom structure of the 2C TCR complexed with its foreign ligand H-2L(d)-QL9. Surprisingly, we find that this TCR utilizes a different strategy to engage the foreign pMHC in comparison to the manner in which it recognizes a self ligand H-2K(b)-dEV8. 2C engages both shared and polymorphic residues on L-d and K-b, as well as the unrelated QL9 and dEV8 peptide antigens, in unique pair-wise contacts, resulting in greater structural complementarity with the L-d-QL9 complex. In the structure of an engineered, high-affinity 2C TCR variant bound to H-2L(d)- QL9, the "wild-type" TCR-MHC binding orientation persists despite modified TCR-CDR3 alpha interactions with peptide. Thus, a single TCR recognizes two globally similar, but distinct ligands by divergent mechanisms, indicating that receptor-ligand crossreactivity can occur in the absence of molecular mimicry.