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International Immunology, Vol. 13, No. 4, 507-518, April 2001
© 2001 Japanese Society for Immunology

Longitudinal analysis of T cells responding to tetanus toxoid in healthy subjects as well as in pediatric patients after bone marrow transplantation: the identification of identical TCR–CDR3 regions in time suggests long-term stability of at least part of the antigen-specific TCR repertoire

Barbara C. Godthelp, Maarten J. D. van Tol, Jaak M. Vossen and Peter J. van den Elsen

Departments of Pediatrics and Immunohematology and Blood Transfusion, Leiden University Medical Center, Building 1, E3-Q, PO Box 9600, 2300 RC Leiden, The Netherlands

Correspondence to: P. J. van den Elsen

To understand the nature of long-term Th immune responses, we investigated in the present study the TCRBV gene repertoire of CD4+ T cells specific for the recall antigen tetanus toxoid (TT) in recipients of an allogeneic bone marrow transplantation (allo-BMT) at several time points after transplantation and in their BM donors. We observed that the TCR repertoire of TT-specific CD4+ Th cells was heterogeneous, and differed between allo-BMT recipients and their respective donors. Some individuals, however, used similar TCR–complementarity-determining region (CDR) 3 motifs that could reflect recognition of and selection by similar promiscuous epitopes of TT. Longitudinal analysis of this TT-specific T cell response revealed that T cells with completely identical TCR were present at several time points after the first analysis in allo-BMT recipients, most probably reflecting long-term stability of at least part of the antigen-specific TCR repertoire. Similar stability of the TT-specific TCR repertoire in time was also noted in the allo-BMT donors. These observations reveal that within a given individual the dominant antigen-specific T cell clones persist in time in an otherwise diverse TT-specific CD4+ T cell immune response.

Keywords: clonal expansion, human, repertoire development, T lymphocytes, TCR

Transmitting editor: J. Borst


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