7. T cell Receptors that May Induce Vogt-Koyanagi-Harada Disease

Introduction: Vogt-Koyanagi-Harada disease (VKH) is an autoimmune disease affecting melanocytes. In Japanese patients, the HLA DRB1:0405 haplotype is strongly associated with the disease, being present in more than 90% of cases. The number of T cell receptors (TCR) related to VKH induction may be limited, and determining the pathological features of these TCRs should be useful in developing specific immune therapy. Methods and materials: Cells infiltrating the anterior chambers of the VKH disease patients' eyes were isolated and immortalized with simian herpes virus (SHV) c488. When the cell number reached a high enough level for analysis, the cells were recovered and reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and single-strand conformation polymorphism (SSCP) were done using primer sets for TCR complementarity determining regions α and β. Results: In the α region, only α 3, 4 and 13 were amplified in all patients. In the β region, Vβ 8 and 14 were amplified in all patients. In one patient, in addition to Vβ 8 and 14, Vβ 4 and 5 were also amplified. On SSCP, 5 bands in Vα 3, 8 bands in Vα 4 and 1 band in Vα 13 were detected. In Vβ 4, 8 bands were detected, in Vβ 5, 7 bands were detected, in Vβ, 8 bands, and in Vβ 14, 3 bands. Conclusions: Surprisingly few variations were detected in the TCRs infiltrating the aqueous humor of VKH patients. These TCRs may be good targets of study in the development of immunotherapy for VKH.