CDR3 clonotype and amino acid motif diversity of BV19 expressing circulating human CD8 T cells

Generating a detailed description of human T cell repertoire diversity is an important goal in the study of human immunology. The circulation is the source of most T cells used for studies in humans. Here we use high throughput sequencing of TCR BV19 transcripts from CD8 T cells derived from unmanipulated PBMC from an older HLA-A2 individual to provide a quantitative and qualitative description of the clonotypic CDR3 nucleotide and amino acid composition of the TCR β-chain from this subset of circulating CD8 T cells. Aggregated samples from six time points spanning ∼1.5 years were analyzed to smooth possible temporal fluctuation. BV19 encompasses the well studied RS-encoding clonotypes involved in recognition of the M158–66 epitope from influenza A in HLA-A2 individuals. The clonotype distribution was diverse, complex and self-similar. The amino acid composition was generally skewed in favor of glycines and there were specific amino acids observed at higher frequency at the NDN start position. The motif repertoire distribution was also diverse, complex and self-similar with respect to CDR3 length, NDN start and length.