T cells carrying the BV1-BJ2.6 TCR β chain do not expand in response to stimulation with peptide huCollp289–303.

<p>A) Sequence alignment of peptide huCollp261 with huCollp289–303 performed with ClustalW algorithm and ESPript software. Identical and similar amino acids are in <i>dark</i> and <i>white</i> boxes, respectively. B) BV1-BJ2.6 spectra obtained from peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) of patient OE stimulated <i>in vitro</i> in the absence of added antigen (background) or in the presence of 20 µg/ml of peptides huCollp261 or huCollp289–303. PBMC were obtained from patient OE during a clinical relapse of disease. They were cultured and cDNA was obtained. BV-BJ spectratyping for rearrangements of BV1 and BJ2.6 was performed as described <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0011550#pone.0011550-Ria1" target="_blank">[15]</a>. The spectra report the distribution of each TCR βCDR3 as a function of its length, where peaks are separated by a 3-base, i.e. one amino acid, difference. The fluorescence of each peak is a function of the amount of CDR3 of each length. Arrows indicate the 134b peak corresponding to the TCR β-chain under study.