Article ID Journal Published Year Pages File Type
9266364 Immunology Letters 2005 5 Pages PDF
Abstract
We examined the αβ T cell receptor (TCR) repertoire of naturally occurring CD4+CD25+ regulatory T (Treg) cells isolated from healthy human blood. Three-color FACS analysis demonstrated that the usage of variable region segments of TCRβ chains by CD4+CD25+ cells did not differ from those of CD4+CD25− cells. Complementarity-determining region 3 (CDR3) size distribution analyses demonstrated that the repertoire diversity of CDR3β was almost identical between CD4+CD25+ and CD4+CD25− T cell subsets, and that there was no skewing of the CDR3β repertoire of CD4+CD25+ T cells. In contrast, in vitro activated CD4+CD25+ T cells by cytomegalovirus-derived antigens showed a skewed CDR3 size distribution pattern. These findings support the hypothesis that naturally occurring CD4+CD25+ T cell subset in humans is 1argely composed of a T cell lineage positively selected in the thymus as a consequence of the interaction between self-peptides and TCRs and not derived from recent activation by a limited array of antigens.
Related Topics
Life Sciences Immunology and Microbiology Immunology
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