title: T cell repertoire in the liver of patients with primary biliary cirrhosis.
abstract: Primary biliary cirrhosis (PBC) is an autoimmune chronic liver disease characterized by the destruction of the bile ducts with an accumulation of lymphocytes. To investigate the roles of T cells accumulating around the bile ducts, we analyzed the clonality of alphabeta T cell populations in the livers of patients with PBC by size spectratyping and sequencing of the T cell receptor (TCR) Vbeta transcripts.TCR Vbeta spectratyping of PBC patients showed several skewed complementarity determining region 3 (CDR3) size patterns suggestive of clonal predominance as well as Gaussian-like patterns suggestive of polyclonal expansion. We observed Vbeta4 clones sharing the Gly (G)-G motif in the CDR3 nDn regions and a Vbeta4-Jbeta2.7 combination in three patients bearing HLA-DR2 and -DQ1. G-Leu (L)-Ala (A) or G-L motifs were also seen in the nDn regions of Vbeta17 with Jbeta2.1 of the two patients having HLA-A26. However, there were no whole CDR3-shared clones in any of the patients. In conclusion, we have observed that T cell clones are heterogeneous in each patient, but that they have some common motifs in the TCR Vbeta CDR3. We strongly suggest that these clonally expanded T cells might be involved in the immunopathogenesis of PBC.
authors.affiliation: Second Department of Internal Medicine, Shinshu University School of Medicine, Asahi, Matsumoto, Japan.
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Inada
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Yoshizawa
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ota
authors.forename: Y
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Katsuyama
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Ichijo
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Umemura
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Tanaka
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Kiyosawa
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D005260:Female; D006650:Histocompatibility Testing; D006801:Humans; D008099:Liver / Q000166:cytology*; D008105:Liver Cirrhosis, Biliary / Q000276:immunology*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D016693:Receptors, Antigen, T-Cell, alpha-beta / Q000235:genetics / Q000276:immunology*; D013601:T-Lymphocytes / Q000166:cytology / Q000276:immunology*
chemical_list: D016693:Receptors, Antigen, T-Cell, alpha-beta