title: Alterations in the spinal cord T cell repertoire during relapsing experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis.
abstract: The CNS T cell repertoire was analyzed by RT-PCR, spectratyping, and nucleotide sequencing of the amplified products at different times following adoptive transfer of a CD4+, Th1, VB2+ encephalitogenic SJL/J proteolipid protein peptide 139-151-specific T cell clone. The third complementarity-determining region of TCR B chains in the spinal cord was used as an indicator of T cell heterogeneity. Spectratypic analysis revealed that a single peak corresponding to the third complementarity-determining region of the initiating T cell clone predominated during the acute phase. During recovery and relapse the complexity of the spectratype increased. DNA sequence analysis revealed that the donor clone predominated at the acute phase. By the first relapse the donor clone, although represented most frequently, was a minority of the total. Spectratypic analysis of the same samples for several other VB families revealed their presence during acute disease or relapses but, with the exception of VB17, their absence during the recovery stage.
authors.affiliation: Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee 53226, USA. rfritz@mcw.edu
authors.forename: R B
authors.initials: RB
authors.lastname: Fritz
authors.forename: X
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: M L
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: Zhao
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D002999:Clone Cells / Q000637:transplantation; D018076:DNA, Complementary / Q000032:analysis; D004681:Encephalomyelitis, Autoimmune, Experimental / Q000276:immunology* / Q000378:metabolism / Q000473:pathology; D005260:Female; D051379:Mice; D008815:Mice, Inbred Strains; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D016693:Receptors, Antigen, T-Cell, alpha-beta / Q000032:analysis / Q000235:genetics; D012008:Recurrence; D020133:Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA; D013116:Spinal Cord / Q000276:immunology* / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000473:pathology; D013154:Spleen / Q000166:cytology / Q000276:immunology / Q000378:metabolism; D016176:T-Lymphocyte Subsets / Q000276:immunology* / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000637:transplantation
chemical_list: D018076:DNA, Complementary; D016693:Receptors, Antigen, T-Cell, alpha-beta