T-Cell Receptor: from T-cell function to T-cell clonality

Abstract

Evaluation of T cell clonality has been costly and/or time-consuming. The analysis of TCR β-chain constant region 1 (TRBC1) provides a simplified immunophenotypic assessment of T-cell clonality. Furthermore, due to the high variability of T-cell populations, there is a need for reliable and robust panels to sort normally from pathological T-cells. The CD27 and CD45RA phenotypic profiling strategy associated with the evaluation of TCRCBeta1 in the same cytometry tube is able to separate normal T Cell populations from clonal populations, gating clusters of cells according to their CD45RA x CD27 expression and then evaluate their TCRCBeta1 status. TCRCBeta1 marker is not only easily implemented in routine immunophenotyping but is also faster and much cheaper than the analysis of TCR-VBeta families either by PCR or by flow cytometry.