Vdelta1+ T cells are crucial for repertoire formation of gammadelta T cells in the lung.

The pulmonary resident T lymphocytes (RPLs) expressing a nearly invariant T cell receptor gammadelta heterodimer (gammadeltaTCR) migrate from fetal thymus to the lung epithelium, followed by RPL subsets expressing diverse sets of gammadeltaTCRs after birth. However, it remains unclear whether the fetal type Vgamma6/Vdelta1+ RPLs are essential for gammadelta T cell repertoire formation in the lung epithelium. In this study, we found a marked decrease in the number of gammadeltaRPLs at 4 weeks of age in Vdelta1-/- mice and they predominantly expressed Vgamma6 and Vdelta4 genes.