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Updated: Jun 16, 2026
Isolation of CD4+ T-cells and Analysis of Circulating T-follicular Helper (cTfh) Cell Subsets from Peripheral Blood Using 6-color Flow Cytometry
Published on: January 7, 2019
Restoration of peripheral blood T cell repertoire complexity during remission in advanced cutaneous T cell lymphoma
Kei-ichi Yamanaka1, Robert C Fuhlbrigge, Hitoshi Mizutani
1Harvard Skin Disease Research Center, Department of Dermatology, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Institutes of Medicine, 77 Avenue Louis Pasteur, Boston, MA 02115, USA.
Abstract:
In advanced stages, cutaneous T cell lymphomas (CTCL) are associated with increased mortality from infections and also increased susceptibility to skin malignancies. In this study, we analyzed the complexity of the peripheral blood T cell repertoire with a sensitive b-variable (BV) complementarity-determining region 3 (CDR3) spectratyping analysis and flow cytometry in three-stage IV CTCL/Sezary syndrome patients who achieved complete clinical remission after therapy. The T cell repertoire of peripheral blood T cells before treatment was profoundly abnormal across multiple BV subfamilies. Following treatment, CDR3 spectratype patterns showed dramatic restoration of normal diversity and complexity. However, absolute CD4 counts across multiple BV families remained low for many months, even after identifiable circulating malignant T cell populations were eliminated. These data suggest that the diversity of the T cell repertoire can be recovered after successful treatment of even advanced CTCL.
