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J. Exp. Med.,
Volume 188, Number 5, September 7, 1998 897-907
Chain
By


From the * Department of Genetics, Medical Institute of Bioregulation, Kyushu University, and The T cell repertoire is shaped by positive and negative selection of thymocytes through the
interaction of
Core
Research for Evolutional Science and Technology (CREST), Japan Science and Technology
Corporation, Fukuoka 812-8582, Japan
/
-T cell receptors (TCR) with self-peptides bound to self-major histocompatibility complex (MHC) molecules. However, the involvement of specific TCR-peptide contacts in positive selection remains unclear. By fixing TCR-
chains with a single rearranged
TCR-
irrelevant to the selecting ligand, we show here that T cells selected to mature on a
single MHC-peptide complex express highly restricted TCR-
chains in terms of V
usage
and amino acid residue of their CDR3 loops, whereas such restriction was not observed with
those selected by the same MHC with diverse sets of self-peptides including this peptide. Thus,
we visualized the TCR structure required to survive positive selection directed by this single
ligand. Our findings provide definitive evidence that specific recognition of self-peptides by
TCR could be involved in positive selection of thymocytes.
chain;
T cell repertoire;
transgenic knockout mice
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