Abstract
Allogeneic bone marrow transplantation (BMT) has become a therapy of choice for the treatment of certain malignancies and hematopoietic disorders. However, immunodeficiencies following BMT continue to cause significant morbidity and mortality. We have compared the T cell receptor (TCR) repertoire of BMT patients and healthy control individuals by staining peripheral blood mononuclear cells with fluorochrome-labeled TCR-specific antibodies. Several patients exhibited a biased pattern of TCR expression atypical of the healthy controls, yet no particular TCR bias characterized all patients. For example, we found that 2%-8% of T cell from healthy individuals expressed the Vβ19 TCR. One BMT patient exhibited Vβ19 expression on more than 60% of peripheral T cells, while additional patients expressed Vβ19 on less than 1% of T cells. The patients with the most extreme skewing of TCR types suffered from graft-versus-host disease. The causes of skewed TCR Vβ expression patterns in BMT patients are not fully understood, yet some researchers have suggested that an oligoclonal expansion of CD8+ T cell populations may be largely responsible. To test this hypothesis, we examined the TCR Vβ repertoire of CD4+ and CD8+ T cell populations. We found that biased Vβ expression characterized both CD4+ and CD8+ T cell populations, sometimes within a single individual. Thus, therapies directed toward CD8+ T cells alone may not fully correct repertoire abnormalities following BMT.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 104-110 |
Number of pages | 7 |
Journal | Cancer Immunology Immunotherapy |
Volume | 41 |
Issue number | 2 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Mar 1995 |
Keywords
- Allogeneic bone marrow transplant
- CD4/CD8 T cells
- Graft-versus-host disease
- T cell development
- T cell receptor repertoire
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Oncology
- Immunology
- Cancer Research