Evaluation of T-cell repertoire by flow cytometric analysis in primary immunodeficiencies with DNA repair defects

The group of patients with DNA-repair-defects increases susceptibility to infections due to impaired repertoire diversity. In this context, we aimed to investigate the TCRvβ-repertoire by flow cytometric analysis and its correlation with clinical entities in a group of IEI patients with DNA repair defects. Peripheral lymphocyte subset and TCRvβ-repertoire analyses were performed by flow cytometric analysis. The aim was to explore the changing TCR-Vβ-repertoire that can predict some clinical entities by investigating the repertoire using flow-cytometric-analysis-based TCR-Vβ and its interaction with clinical entities in a group of IEI patients with DNA repair defects. TCR-repertoire of the patients with DNA-repair-defects and healthy controls was analysed with flow-cytometer. The potential of flow-cytometric analysis of the TCR repertoire as a practical and easily accessible clinical prediction method was investigated. Thirty-nine-IEI patients with DNA-repair-defects and 15 age-matched healthy-controls were included in this study. Peripheral lymphocyte subset and TCR-Vβ repertoire analyses were performed by flow cytometry. Compared to the control group, 9 out of 24 clones (37.5%) exhibited a statistically significant reduction, while only 3 clones showed a statistically significant increase (p < 0.05). Preferential use of vβ-genes was associated with some clinical entities. Lower TCR-vβ-9 and TCR-vβ23, higher TCR-vβ7.2 were found in the patients with pneumonia (n = 13) (p = 0.018, p = 0.044 p = 0.032). AT patients with pneumonia had lower TCR-vβ-9 clone than patients without pneumonia (p = 0.008). Skewed proliferation of most TCR-vβ clones was seen DNA-repair-defects, especially AT. In addition, this study showed that preferential use of TCR-vβ genes could be predictive for some clinical entities.