The Journal of Experimental Medicine
Avanti Polar Lipids, Inc.
  Home | Help | Feedback | Subscriptions | Archive | Search | Table of Contents
This Article
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF, 222K)
Right arrow PPT slides of all figures
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Citation Map
Services
Right arrow Email this article
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new content in the JEM
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via CrossRef
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Gapin, L.
Right arrow Articles by Kourilsky, P.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Gapin, L.
Right arrow Articles by Kourilsky, P.
Right arrowPubmed/NCBI databases
*Substance via MeSH
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Complore   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Facebook   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati   Add to Twitter  
What's this?
© The Rockefeller University Press, 0022-1007/1998/6/1871/ $5.00
The Journal of Experimental Medicine, Volume 187, Number 11, June 1, 1998 1871-1883

Articles

Quantitative Analysis of the T Cell Repertoire Selected by a Single Peptide–Major Histocompatibility Complex

Laurent Gapin*, Yoshinori Fukui{ddagger}, Jean Kanellopoulos*, Tetsuro Sano{ddagger}, Armanda Casrouge*, Vanessa Malier*, Emmanuel Beaudoing§, Daniel Gautheret§, Jean-Michel Claverie§, Takehiko Sasazuki{ddagger}, and Philippe Kourilsky*

From the * Laboratoire de Biologie Moléculaire du Gène, Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale U277 and Institut Pasteur, 75724 Paris, France; the {ddagger} Department of Genetics, Medical Institute of Bioregulation and Ministry of Education, Science, Sports and Culture, Japan Science and Technology Corporation, Fukuoka 812, Japan; and the § Information Genetique et Structurale, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Institut de Biologie Structurale et Microbiologie, 13402 Marseille, France

The positive selection of CD4+ T cells requires the expression of major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class II molecules in the thymus, but the role of self-peptides complexed to class II molecules is still a matter of debate. Recently, it was observed that transgenic mice expressing a single peptide–MHC class II complex positively select significant numbers of diverse CD4+ T cells in the thymus. However, the number of selected T cell specificities has not been evaluated so far. Here, we have sequenced 700 junctional complementarity determining regions 3 (CDR3) from T cell receptors (TCRs) carrying Vβ11-Jβ1.1 or Vβ12-Jβ1.1 rearrangements. We found that a single peptide–MHC class II complex positively selects at least 105 different Vβ rearrangements. Our data yield a first evaluation of the size of the T cell repertoire. In addition, they provide evidence that the single E{alpha}52-68–I-Ab complex skews the amino acid frequency in the TCR CDR3 loop of positively selected T cells. A detailed analysis of CDR3 sequences indicates that a fraction of the β chain repertoire bears the imprint of the selecting self-peptide.

Key Words: thymus • major histocompatibility complex • T cell receptors • repertoire development • transgenic/knockout

Address correspondence to Philippe Kourilsky, Laboratoire de Biologie Moléculaire du Gène, INSERM U277 and Institut Pasteur, 28, rue du Docteur Roux, 75724 Paris cedex 15, France. Phone: 33-1-45-68-85-45; Fax: 33-1-45-68-85-48; E-mail: kourilsk{at}pasteur.fr

L. Gapin is supported by l'Association pour la Recherche contre le Cancer and Pasteur-Weizmann fellowships. This work was supported by grants from Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale and Institut Pasteur.

L. Gapin's current address is La Jolla Institute for Allergy and Immunology, Division of Developmental Immunology, San Diego, CA 92121.

Abbreviations used: CLIP, class II–associated invariant chain peptide; Tg, transgenic mice.


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Facebook Facebook   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati   Add to Twitter Twitter    What's this?




  Home | Help | Feedback | Subscriptions | Archive | Search
TABLE OF CONTENTS