title: Analysis of the CDR3 length repertoire and the diversity of TCR alpha chain in human peripheral blood T lymphocytes.
abstract: Analysis of complementarity determining region 3 (CDR3) length of T lymphocyte receptors (TCRs) by immunoscope spectratyping technique has been used successfully to investigate the diversity of TCR in autoimmune diseases and infection diseases. In this study, we investigated the patterns of CDR3 length distribution for all 32 TCR AV gene families in human peripheral blood lymphocytes of four normal volunteers by the immunoscope spectratyping technique. It was found that PCR products exhibited an obscure band on 1.5% agarose gel electrophoresis. Each TCR AV family exhibited more than 8 bands on 6% sequencing gel electrophoresis. The CDR3 spectratyping of all TCR AV families showed a standard Gaussian distribution with different CDR3 length, and the expression frequency of CDR3 was similar among the gene families. Most of CDR3 in TCR AV family recombine in frame. However, some of the CDR3 showed out-of frame gene rearrangement. Additionally, we found that in some of TCR AV families there were 18 amino acid discrepancies between the longest CDR3 and shortest CDR3. These results may be helpful to further study the recombination mechanism of human TCR genes, the TCR CDR3 gene repertoire, and the repertoire drift in health people and disease state.
authors.affiliation: Department of Immunology, Zunyi Medical College, Zunyi, China. immunology@126.com
authors.forename: Xin Sheng
authors.initials: XS
authors.lastname: Yao
authors.forename: Ying
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Diao
authors.forename: Wan Bang
authors.initials: WB
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.forename: Jun Min
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Luo
authors.forename: Ming
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Qin
authors.forename: Xian Ying
authors.initials: XY
authors.lastname: Tang
mesh_terms: D022801:Complementarity Determining Regions / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000235:genetics*; D014644:Genetic Variation; D006801:Humans; D016693:Receptors, Antigen, T-Cell, alpha-beta / Q000096:biosynthesis / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000235:genetics*; D016176:T-Lymphocyte Subsets / Q000737:chemistry / Q000276:immunology* / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D022801:Complementarity Determining Regions; D016693:Receptors, Antigen, T-Cell, alpha-beta