Project description:Infiltrating T-lymphocytes from the peripheral blood into the central nervous system (CNS) play a dynamic role in the development of a neurological immune-mediated diseases. HAM/TSP is a chronic progressive inflammatory neurological disorder associated with human T-cell lymphotropic virus type I (HTLV-I) infection. In this chronic myelopathy, virus-infected circulating T-cells infiltrate the CNS and an immune response is initiated against the components of CNS. As the HTLV-I proviral load (PVL) has been used as the best clinical marker for patient diagnostic with HAM/TSP, we hypothesized there might be a signature on T-cell receptor (TCR) clonal repertoire in these patients, which could distinguish HAM/TSP patients from the healthy population, as well as from patients with a more heterogeneous CNS-reactive inflammatory disease as multiple sclerosis (MS). With this in mind, we applied an innovative unbiased molecular technique – unique molecular identifier (UMI) library-strategy to investigate with high accuracy the TCR clonal repertoire by high throughput sequencing (HTS) technology. cDNA-TCR β-chain libraries were sequenced from 2 million peripheral mononuclear cells (PBMCs) in 14 HAM/TSP patients, 34 MS patients and 20 healthy controls (HC). To address whether the clonal expansion correlates with the patient’s PVL level, analysis of longitudinal TCR repertoire was performed in 2 HAM/TSP patients. Over 5.6 million TCR sequences were generated per sample on HiSeq 2500 Illumina system and analyzed through the molecular identifier groups-based error correction pipeline (MiGEC). Bioinformatic analysis showed that clones with more than 8 reads had a lower coefficient of variation (CV) and then could be used with confidence to evaluate the TCR clonal expansion. While HAM/TSP patients showed the higher clonal T-cell expansion compared to MS and HC, increase of the TCR clonal expansion was inversely correlated with the diversity of TCR repertoire in all subject’s group. In addition, correlation of the PVL with TCR clonal expansion was observed in HAM/TSP patients at longitudinal time-points. Surprisingly, MS patients showed a higher diversity of TCR repertoire along with a very slight clonal T-cell expansion in comparison to either HAM/TSP patients or HC. Despite of the higher TCR clonal expansion in HAM/TSP patients, a non-shared or “private” TCR repertoire was observed in these patients. No clones that shared the same CDR3 amino acid sequences were seen in HC and MS patients. However, a cluster of related CDR3 amino acid sequences were observed for 18 out of 34 MS patients when evaluated by phylogenetic tree analysis. It suggestes that a TCR-repertoire signature might characterize patients with MS. Our findings suggest that even though a unique TCR-b repertoire shapes the immune response in patients with neurological immune-mediated disease, a relatedness on clonal T-cell repertoire exist in MS.
Project description:Kynureninase is a member of a large family of catalytically diverse but structurally homologous pyridoxal 5'-phosphate (PLP) dependent enzymes known as the aspartate aminotransferase superfamily or alpha-family. The Homo sapiens and other eukaryotic constitutive kynureninases preferentially catalyze the hydrolytic cleavage of 3-hydroxy-l-kynurenine to produce 3-hydroxyanthranilate and l-alanine, while l-kynurenine is the substrate of many prokaryotic inducible kynureninases. The human enzyme was cloned with an N-terminal hexahistidine tag, expressed, and purified from a bacterial expression system using Ni metal ion affinity chromatography. Kinetic characterization of the recombinant enzyme reveals classic Michaelis-Menten behavior, with a Km of 28.3 +/- 1.9 microM and a specific activity of 1.75 micromol min-1 mg-1 for 3-hydroxy-dl-kynurenine. Crystals of recombinant kynureninase that diffracted to 2.0 A were obtained, and the atomic structure of the PLP-bound holoenzyme was determined by molecular replacement using the Pseudomonas fluorescens kynureninase structure (PDB entry 1qz9) as the phasing model. A structural superposition with the P. fluorescens kynureninase revealed that these two structures resemble the "open" and "closed" conformations of aspartate aminotransferase. The comparison illustrates the dynamic nature of these proteins' small domains and reveals a role for Arg-434 similar to its role in other AAT alpha-family members. Docking of 3-hydroxy-l-kynurenine into the human kynureninase active site suggests that Asn-333 and His-102 are involved in substrate binding and molecular discrimination between inducible and constitutive kynureninase substrates.
Project description:Emerging evidence suggests that an increased density of pre-treatment CD8+ tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) is associated with good response to chemoradiotherapy (CRT) in patients with locally advanced rectal cancer. However, the significance of T-cell complexity in the clinical setting remains unknown. High-throughput T-cell receptor (TCR) β sequencing was applied to quantify the TCR repertoire of pre-treatment biopsies from 67 patients with advanced rectal cancer receiving preoperative CRT. Changes in TCR repertoire before and after CRT were also analysed in 23 patients.