Publications by authors named "Olga Britanova"

Multiple alterations in the T cell repertoire were identified in many chronic inflammatory diseases such as inflammatory bowel disease, multiple sclerosis, and rheumatoid arthritis, suggesting that T cells might, directly or indirectly, be implicated in these pathologies. This has sparked a deep interest in characterizing disease-associated T cell clonotypes as well as in identifying and quantifying their contribution to the pathophysiology of different autoimmune and inflammation-mediated diseases. Bulk T cell repertoire sequencing (TCR-Seq) has emerged as a powerful method to profile the T cell repertoire of a sample in a high throughput fashion.

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() remains a major threat worldwide, although only a fraction of infected individuals develops tuberculosis (TB). TB susceptibility is shaped by multiple genetic factors, and we performed comparative immunological analysis of two mouse strains to uncover relevant mechanisms underlying susceptibility and resistance. C57BL/6 mice are relatively TB-resistant, whereas I/St mice are prone to develop severe TB, partly due to the MHC-II allelic variant that shapes suboptimal CD4 T cell receptor repertoire.

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HLA-DR-positive NK cells, found in both healthy individuals and patients with different inflammatory diseases, are characterized as activated cells. However, data on their capacity for IFNγ production or cytotoxic response vary between studies. Thus, more precise investigation is needed of the mechanisms related to the induction of HLA-DR expression in NK cells, their associations with NK cell differentiation stage, and functional or metabolic state.

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Background: Some peptide anticancer vaccines elicit a strong T-cell memory response but fail to suppress tumor growth. To gain insight into tumor resistance, we compared two peptide vaccines, p20 and p30, against B16 melanoma, with both exhibiting good in vitro T-cell responses but different tumor suppression abilities.

Methods: We compared activation markers and repertoires of T-lymphocytes from tumor-draining (dLN) and non-draining (ndLN) lymph nodes for the two peptide vaccines.

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Suppressive function of regulatory T cells (Treg) is dependent on signaling of their antigen receptors triggered by cognate self, dietary, or microbial peptides presented on MHC II. However, it remains largely unknown whether distinct or shared repertoires of Treg TCRs are mobilized in response to different challenges in the same tissue or the same challenge in different tissues. Here we use a fixed TCRβ chain FoxP3-GFP mouse model to analyze conventional (eCD4) and regulatory (eTreg) effector TCRα repertoires in response to six distinct antigenic challenges to the lung and skin.

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Follicular regulatory T cells (Tfr) can play opposite roles in the regulation of germinal center (GC) responses. Depending on the studies, Tfr suppress or support GC and B cell affinity maturation. However, which factors determine positive vs.

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Autoimmunity is intrinsically driven by memory T and B cell clones inappropriately targeted at self-antigens. Selective depletion or suppression of self-reactive T cells remains a holy grail of autoimmune therapy, but disease-associated T cell receptors (TCRs) and cognate antigenic epitopes remained elusive. A TRBV9-containing CD8 TCR motif was recently associated with the pathogenesis of ankylosing spondylitis, psoriatic arthritis and acute anterior uveitis, and cognate HLA-B*27-presented epitopes were identified.

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Inhibitory CD4 T cells have been linked with suboptimal immune responses against cancer and pathogen chronicity. However, the mechanisms that underpin the development of these regulatory cells, especially in the context of ongoing antigen exposure, have remained obscure. To address this knowledge gap, we undertook a comprehensive functional, phenotypic, and transcriptomic analysis of interleukin (IL)-10-producing CD4 T cells induced by chronic infection with murine cytomegalovirus (MCMV).

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T cell engineering with T cell receptors (TCR) specific to tumor antigens has become a breakthrough towards personalized cancer adoptive cell immunotherapy. However, the search for therapeutic TCRs is often challenging, and effective strategies are strongly required for the identification and enrichment of tumor-specific T cells that express TCRs with superior functional characteristics. Using an experimental mouse tumor model, we studied sequential changes in TCR repertoire features of T cells involved in the primary and secondary immune responses to allogeneic tumor antigens.

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The global SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has united the efforts of many scientists all over the world to develop wet-lab techniques and computational approaches aimed at the identification of antigen-specific T and B cells. The latter provide specific humoral immunity that is essential for the survival of COVID-19 patients, and vaccine development has essentially been based on these cells. Here, we implemented an approach that integrates the sorting of antigen-specific B cells and B-cell receptor mRNA sequencing (BCR-seq), followed by computational analysis.

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The interplay between T- and B-cell compartments during naïve, effector and memory T cell maturation is critical for a balanced immune response. Primary B-cell immunodeficiency arising from X-linked agammaglobulinemia (XLA) offers a model to explore B cell impact on T cell subsets, starting from the thymic selection. Here we investigated characteristics of naïve and effector T cell subsets in XLA patients, revealing prominent alterations in the corresponding T-cell receptor (TCR) repertoires.

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Neocortical projection neurons are generated by neural progenitor cells (NPCs) within the ventricular and subventricular zone. While early NPCs can give rise to both deep and upper layer neurons, late progenitors are restricted to upper layer neurogenesis. The molecular mechanisms controlling the differentiation potential of early versus late NPCs are unknown.

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Complications after vaccination, lack of vaccines against certain infections, and the emergence of antibiotic-resistant microorganisms point to the need for alternative ways of protection and treatment of infectious diseases. Here, we proposed a therapeutic approach to control salmonellosis based on adoptive cell therapy. We showed that the T cell receptor (TCR) repertoire of salmonella-specific memory cells contains 20% of TCR variants with the dominant-active α-chain.

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The organizational integrity of the adaptive immune system is determined by functionally discrete subsets of CD4 T cells, but it has remained unclear to what extent lineage choice is influenced by clonotypically expressed T-cell receptors (TCRs). To address this issue, we used a high-throughput approach to profile the αβ TCR repertoires of human naive and effector/memory CD4 T-cell subsets, irrespective of antigen specificity. Highly conserved physicochemical and recombinatorial features were encoded on a subset-specific basis in the effector/memory compartment.

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T cell maturation and activation depend upon T cell receptor (TCR) interactions with a wide variety of antigenic peptides displayed in a given major histocompatibility complex (MHC) context. Complementarity-determining region 3 (CDR3) is the most variable part of the TCRα and -β chains, which govern interactions with peptide-MHC complexes. However, it remains unclear how the CDR3 landscape is shaped by individual MHC context during thymic selection of naïve T cells.

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Recent data show that B cells and plasma cells located in tumours or in tumour-draining lymph nodes can have important roles in shaping antitumour immune responses. In tumour-associated tertiary lymphoid structures, T cells and B cells interact and undergo cooperative selection, specialization and clonal expansion. Importantly, B cells can present cognate tumour-derived antigens to T cells, with the functional consequences of such interactions being shaped by the B cell phenotype.

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The fetus is thought to be protected from exposure to foreign antigens, yet CD45RO T cells reside in the fetal intestine. Here we combined functional assays with mass cytometry, single-cell RNA sequencing and high-throughput T cell antigen receptor (TCR) sequencing to characterize the CD4 T cell compartment in the human fetal intestine. We identified 22 CD4 T cell clusters, including naive-like, regulatory-like and memory-like subpopulations, which were confirmed and further characterized at the transcriptional level.

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Article Synopsis
  • Age-related changes in the immune system lead to a weaker response to new pathogens and vaccines, particularly impacting older individuals.
  • In a study comparing young adults (ages 19-26) to middle-aged adults (ages 45-58) who were vaccinated with the yellow fever vaccine, distinct differences in antibody responses were observed.
  • Younger individuals exhibited a more diverse and efficient antibody repertoire and somatic hypermutation process, indicating a stronger immune response to new pathogens compared to their older counterparts.
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Human aging is associated with a profound loss of thymus productivity, yet naïve T lymphocytes still maintain their numbers by division in the periphery for many years. The extent of such proliferation may depend on the cytokine environment, including IL-7 and T-cell receptor (TCR) "tonic" signaling mediated by self pMHCs recognition. Additionally, intrinsic properties of distinct subpopulations of naïve T cells could influence the overall dynamics of aging-related changes within the naïve T cell compartment.

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Objective: The risk of AS is associated with genomic variants related to antigen presentation and specific cytokine signalling pathways, suggesting the involvement of cellular immunity in disease initiation/progression. The aim of the present study was to explore the repertoire of TCR sequences in healthy donors and AS patients to uncover AS-linked TCR variants.

Methods: Using quantitative molecular-barcoded 5'-RACE, we performed deep TCR β repertoire profiling of peripheral blood (PB) and SF samples for 25 AS patients and 108 healthy donors.

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For understanding the rules and laws of adaptive immunity, high-throughput profiling of T-cell receptor (TCR) repertoires becomes a powerful tool. The structure of TCR repertoires is instructive even before the antigen specificity of each particular receptor becomes available. It embodies information about the thymic and peripheral selection of T cells; the readiness of an adaptive immunity to withstand new challenges; the character, magnitude and memory of immune responses; and the aetiological and functional proximity of T-cell subsets.

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The mechanisms leading to autoimmune and inflammatory diseases in the CNS have not been elucidated. The environmental triggers of the aberrant presence of CD4 T cells in the CNS are not known. In this article, we report that abnormal β-catenin expression in T cells drives a fatal neuroinflammatory disease in mice that is characterized by CNS infiltration of T cells, glial activation, and progressive loss of motor function.

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The diversity of T-cell receptors recognizing foreign pathogens is generated through a highly stochastic recombination process, making the independent production of the same sequence rare. Yet unrelated individuals do share receptors, which together constitute a "public" repertoire of abundant clonotypes. The TCR repertoire is initially formed prenatally, when the enzyme inserting random nucleotides is downregulated, producing a limited diversity subset.

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Background: The repertoire of T- and B-cell receptor sequences encodes the antigen specificity of adaptive immunity system, determines its present state and guides its ability to mount effective response against encountered antigens in future. High throughput sequencing of immune repertoires (Rep-Seq) is a promising technique that allows to profile millions of antigen receptors of an individual in a single experiment. While a substantial number of tools for mapping and assembling Rep-Seq data were published recently, the field still lacks an intuitive and flexible tool that can be used by researchers with little or no computational background for in-depth analysis of immune repertoire profiles.

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The diversity, architecture, and dynamics of the TCR repertoire largely determine our ability to effectively withstand infections and malignancies with minimal mistargeting of immune responses. In this study, we have employed deep TCRβ repertoire sequencing with normalization based on unique molecular identifiers to explore the long-term dynamics of T cell immunity. We demonstrate remarkable stability of repertoire, where approximately half of all T cells in peripheral blood are represented by clones that persist and generally preserve their frequencies for 3 y.

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