Bianca M. Conti-Fine, Principal Investigator

Modeling the Folding of Human T Cell Receptors That Recognize Unrelated Sequences

The ability to recognize unrelated sequences is not uncommon among T cell receptors (TCRs). It may even be an intrinsic characteristic of all TCRs. The TCR’s ability to cross-react with different targets may be important for increasing the T cell repertoire. Also, it is possible that autoimmune phenomena are triggered by T cells activated by exogenous antigens, and are able to crossreact with epitopes from self antigens.

In this laboratory, the researchers propagated from healthy subjects monoclonal CD4+ T cell lines that are able to recognize the same unrelated sequences. Each T cell clone expresses a different TCR, as judged by the sequence of its Vα and Vβ regions. These researchers identified the sequence of the Vα and Vβ regions of several such cross-reactive TCRs.

The goal of this project was to take advantage of the coordinates of the many solved TCR structures to model the sequences obtained, in an attempt to identify characteristics that would explain their cross-reactivity with unrelated sequences.

Research Group

Brenda M. Diethelm-Okita, Staff
Mike Unruh, Graduate Student Researcher