MOLECULAR ANALYSIS OF THE T-CELL RECEPTOR BETA-CHAIN REPERTOIRE IN EARLY RHEUMATOID-ARTHRITIS - HETEROGENEOUS TCRBV GENE USAGE WITH SHARED AMINO-ACID PROFILES IN CDR3 REGIONS OF T-LYMPHOCYTES IN MULTIPLE SYNOVIAL TISSUE NEEDLE BIOPSIES FROM THE SAME JOINT

To gain insight into the nature of the immune response with respect to accumulation and composition of the T-cell receptor (TCR) repertoire in synovial tissue in rheumatoid arthritis (RA), we have determined th e nucleotide sequence of TCRBV regions transcribed by T lymphocytes de rived from synovial tissue. Synovial tissue was obtained by needle bio psies from three different sites of the same joint in two early RA pat ients. We found that the TCRBV region repertoire among synovial tissue -infiltrating mononuclear cells was heterogeneous when the different b iopsies taken from each patient were compared. However, DNA sequence a nalysis of TCRBV rearrangements of synovial T lymphocytes showed conse rved amino acid usage profiles in the CDR3 domains of different TCRBV regions, which exhibited an individual specific character. These CDR3 motifs were not present in paired samples of peripheral blood. The exi stence of homologous CDR3 amino acid profiles within the TCRBV regions derived from synovial tissue is indicative of an antigen-driven immun e response.