T cell receptor αβ diversity inversely correlates with pathogen-specific antibody levels in human cytomegalovirus infection

Abstract

A diverse T cell receptor (TCR) repertoire capable of recognizing a broad range of antigenic peptides is thought to be central to effective pathogen-specific immunity by counteracting escape mutations, selecting high-avidity T cells, and providing T cell specificities with comprehensive functional characteristics. However, evidence that TCR diversity is important for the successful control of human infections is limited. A single-cell strategy for the clonotypic analysis of human CD8 + TCRαβ repertoires was used to probe the diversity and magnitude of individual human cytomegalovirus (CMV) - specific CD8 + T cells recovered directly ex vivo. We found that CD8 + TCRαβ repertoire diversity, bu..