T-cell grit: large clonal expansions of virus-specific CD8+ T cells can dominate in the peripheral circulation for at least 18 years

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Abstract
The CTL response toward a latent HLA B*0801-binding EBV epitope, FLRGRAYGL (FLR), has been described previously and was found to comprise large expansions of T cells bearing identical T-cell receptor (TcR) amino acid sequences in unrelated, B*0801+ individuals.5-8 In this follow-up study we investigated the FLR-specific T-cell repertoire of donor 1 using seven T-cell clones generated in 1987 and a pool of ex vivo, pentamer-sorted lymphocytes from 2005 (Figure 1A). Fifty-five TcR sequences derived from both time points revealed only a single TRBV7-8/TRAV26 clonal expansion, identical to the DNA level.