An improved design of PCR primers for detection of human T cell receptor beta chain repertoire

Analysis of T cell receptor beta variable region (TCRBV) gene rearrangement is useful for clonal assessment of abnormal T cell proliferations in various diseases. However, most primer panels previously used can only amplify the third complementarity-determining region. Following IMGT database we established a panel of primers, which can amplify entire sequences of all functional TCRBV families. To confirm the usefulness of this panel of primers, we detected different TCRBV repertoires. In 15 healthy donors, most of the BV families were expressed and appeared as a Gaussian distribution. 13 acute myeloid leukemia patients showed monoclonal or oligoclonal changes of BV15 family, and some of them also had monoclonal or oligoclonal expansion of BV2, BV4, BV6 or BV13 families. In one patient after allo-hematopoietic stem cell transplantation, monoclonal proliferation of BV10 family occurred during graft-versus-host disease. In conclusion, this panel of primers improves our abilities to analyze TCRBV repertoire changes in related diseases.Biochemistry & Molecular BiologySCI(E)PubMed3ARTICLE1145-1523