Characterization of T cell receptor beta chains of accumulating T cells in skin allografts in mice.

The study of T cells involved in the immune reaction that occurs in engrafted organs should provide information that would be helpful in the regulation of allograft rejection in organ transplantation. Toward this end, we focused on detection and characterization of accumulating T cells in mouse skin allografts from B10.A(4R) to C57BL/6 mice in vivo. T cell receptor beta genes were amplified by reverse transcriptase-PCR from mRNA of the skin grafts, and accumulating T cell receptor beta gene clonotypes were identified by their single strand conformation polymorphism. Their joining region usage and the amino acid sequences of the complementarity-determining region-3 were then determined. The results were as follows: (1) Distinct oligoclonal accumulation of T cells was more prevalent in the skin allografts than in the syngenic skin grafts. (2) Although the accumulating T cell clonotypes appeared to use many different variable-region gene families, preferential combinations of variable region-joining region were found. (3) Several homologous amino acid sequences were found in these accumulating TCR beta genes in allografts, suggesting that these T cells are driven by the same or similar antigens. (4) In addition, little T cell accumulation was found in spleens from the mice with allografts or syngenic skin grafts. Taken together, accumulating T cells in the skin allografts were detected in vivo, and some appeared to have characteristics in common. This may lead to T cell clonotype-specific therapy in organ transplantation.