TCR链配对约束的不均衡性决定表位识别

INTRODUCTION: Conventional T cell recognition is mediated by the paired alpha and beta chains of the T cell receptor (TCR). Predicting target antigens from receptor sequences, and vice versa, has many diagnostic and therapeutic applications. Because TCRs are generated by a stochastic gene-shuffling process, their vast potential diversity far exceeds the limited number of T cells in any one individual. As a result, different people responding to the same antigen usually use distinct receptors, complicating efforts to derive universal rules for specificity. Even so, shared sequence motifs are commonly observed in one or both receptor chains within responses to the same molecular target. …