Effect of TCR signaling attenuation on Treg and Tconv repertoires and gene expression by using single cell sequencing

During development, strongly self-reactive T cells are deleted in the thymus, while moderately self-reactive T cells differentiate into Treg cells, and only slightly self-reactive T cells will mature into Tconv. To study the effect of TCR signaling attenuation on T cell repertoire development, we used a mouse model of rheumatoid arthritis which harbors a mutation that induces TCR signal attenuation (SKG). CD4T cells were isolated from the spleen of WT and SKG mice, and sorted into Treg and Tconv. Finally, single cell VDJ and mRNA sequencing were performed using 10x technology.