T Cell Receptor alpha beta 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, but not..