Comprehensive Analysis of TCR-β Repertoire in Patients with Neurological Immune-mediated Disorders.

In this study we characterized the TCR repertoire profiles in patients with chronic progressive inflammatory neurological disorders including HAM/TSP, associated with human T-cell lymphotropic virus type I (HTLV-I) infection, and multiple sclerosis (MS), an inflammatory, demyelinating disease of the CNS of unknown etiology. We hypothesized that a T-cell receptor (TCR) clonal repertoire 'signature' could distinguish HAM/TSP patients from healthy controls, as well as from patients with a more heterogeneous CNS-reactive inflammatory disease such as MS. In this study, we applied an unbiased molecular technique - unique molecular identifier (UMI) library-based strategy to investigate with high accuracy the TCR clonal repertoire by high throughput sequencing (HTS) technology.

Intrathecal T-cell clonal expansions in patients with multiple sclerosis.

Objective: Analysis of the T-cell receptor (TCR) repertoire in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) of patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) can reveal antigen-specific immune responses potentially implicated in the disease process. We applied a new unbiased deep-sequencing method for TCR repertoire analysis to accurately measure and compare receptor diversity and clonal expansions within the peripheral and CSF-trafficking T-cell populations of patients with MS and control individuals with idiopathic intracranial hypertension (IIH).

Methods: Paired blood and CSF TCR β-chain libraries from five MS patients and five IIH controls were sequenced, yielding a total of 80 million reads.

T cell repertoire following autologous stem cell transplantation for multiple sclerosis.

Autologous hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) is commonly employed for hematologic and non-hematologic malignancies. In clinical trials, HSCT has been evaluated for severe autoimmunity as a method to "reset" the immune system and produce a new, non-autoimmune repertoire. While the feasibility of eliminating the vast majority of mature T cells is well established, accurate and quantitative determination of the relationship of regenerated T cells to the baseline repertoire has been difficult to assess.

The renal effects of alginates isolated from brown seaweed Sargassum vulgare.

Alginates isolated from Sargassum vulgare, present a strong antitumor activity, associated with kidney reversible damage, as analysed by histopathology of treated animals. In the present study, the renal alteration mechanisms of S. vulgare alginates were investigated using the isolated perfused rat kidney and the isolated perfused rat mesenteric blood vessel methods.