TCR-MHC Interaction Strength Defines Trafficking and Resident Memory Status of CD8 T cells in the Brain.

It is unknown how peptide-activated CD8 T cells that harbour different and distinct T cell receptors to the same MHC-epitope combination differ in terms of their transcriptional expression profile. In this experiment we compared the expression profile of three activated transnuclear CD8 T cell clones that differ in their T cell receptor and affinity to cognate peptide and self-reactivity. We find that the transcriptomes of these T cells differ with respect to readiness for cell cycle progression and T cell receptor signaling. The transnuclear mice harbouring the CD8 T cells were reported in Kirak et al, Science, 2010 and characterised in Swee et al, Open Biology, 2016. In brief, the TCR sequence can be found in the former publication, the TCR affinity hierarchy to cognate peptide is defined in the latter paper as R7-I>R7-III>R7-II. The self-reactivity hierarchy can be found in the latter paper as well (defined by CD5 and Nur-77 expression) and is R7-III>R7-I>R7-II.