Longitudinal analysis of peripheral blood T cell receptor diversity in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus by next-generation sequencing

T cells play an important role in the pathogenesis of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). Clonal expansion of T cells correlating with disease activity has been observed in peripheral blood (PB) of SLE subjects. Recently, next-generation sequencing (NGS) of the T cell receptor (TCR) β loci has emerged as a sensitive way to measure the T cell repertoire. In this study, we utilized NGS to assess whether changes in T cell repertoire diversity in PB of SLE patients correlate with or predict changes in disease activity. Total RNA was isolated from the PB of 11 SLE patients. Each subject had three s... Mehr ...