In vivo selection of T-cell receptor junctional region sequences by HLA-A2 human T-cell lymphotropic virus type 1

M Saito1, G P Taylor, A Saito

  • 1Departments of Immunology, Imperial College School of Medicine, St. Mary's Campus, London W2 1PG, United Kingdom.

Journal of Virology
|January 3, 2001
PubMed

Using HLA-peptide tetrameric complexes, we isolated human T-cell lymphotrophic virus type 1 Tax peptide-specific CD8(+) T cells ex vivo. Antigen-specific amino acid motifs were identified in the T-cell receptor Vbeta CDR3 region of clonally expanded CD8(+) T cells. This result directly confirms the importance of the CDR3 region in determining the antigen specificity in vivo.