Single‐cell TCR repertoire analysis reveals highly polyclonal composition of human intraepithelial CD8 + αβ T lymphocytes in untreated celiac disease

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

Celiac disease (CeD) is a chronic inflammatory disease driven by exposure to dietary gluten. The mucosal changes in the small intestine are characterized by infiltration of intraepithelial lymphocytes (IELs) that resolves on a gluten-free diet [1]. In CeD, CD8+ αβ IELs are considered to be central in killing of enterocytes and contribute to tissue destruction [2]. Thus, we wanted to investigate the clonal contribution of these T cells in gut biopsies of CeD affected and non-affected individuals. Early studies in mice showed that the TCRαβ repertoire in the small intestine is oligoclonal [3,4]. Further studies in germfree rats demonstrated that the repertoire is surprisingly broad but transitioned into a more oligoclonal repertoire upon microbial colonization [5]. In humans, it has been reported that the CD8+ αβ repertoire of IELs is oligoclonal in adults but polyclonal during infancy [6–8], suggesting