Abstract

Antigen-specific T-cell responses induced by infection, transplantation, autoimmunity or hypersensitivity are characterized by cells expressing biased profiles of T-cell receptors (TCRs) that are selected from a diverse, naive repertoire. Here, we review the evidence for these TCR biases, focusing on crystallographic analysis of the structural constraints that determine the binding of a TCR to its ligand and the persistence of certain TCRs in an immune repertoire. We discuss the ways in which diversity in a selected TCR repertoire can contribute to protective immunity and the implications of this for vaccine design and immunotherapy.

Author affiliations

1. The Department of Microbiology and Immunology, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria 3010, Australia.
2. The Protein Crystallography Unit, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria 3800, Australia.

Correspondence to: Stephen J. Turner¹ Email: sjturn@unimelb.edu.au

Published online 17 November 2006

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