Structural determinants of T-cell receptor bias in immunity
Stephen J Turner1, Peter C Doherty, James McCluskey
1Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria 3010, Australia. sjturn@unimelb.edu.au
Abstract:
Antigen-specific T-cell responses induced by infection, transplantation, autoimmunity or hypersensitivity are characterized by cells expressing biased profiles of T-cell receptors (TCRs) that are selected from a diverse, naive repertoire. Here, we review the evidence for these TCR biases, focusing on crystallographic analysis of the structural constraints that determine the binding of a TCR to its ligand and the persistence of certain TCRs in an immune repertoire. We discuss the ways in which diversity in a selected TCR repertoire can contribute to protective immunity and the implications of this for vaccine design and immunotherapy.
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