Vβ T cell repertoire of CD8+ splenocytes selected on nonpolymorphic MHC class I molecules

In this work, we have studied the role of the MHC class Ib molecules in the selection and maintenance of CD8+ T splenocytes. We have compared the CD8+ T cell repertoires of wild-type, H-2K-deficient, H-2D-deficient, or double knockout C57BL/6 mice. We show that the different CD8+ repertoires, selected either by class Ia and class Ib or by class Ib molecules only, use the various Vα (AV) and Vβ (BV) rearrangements in the same proportion and without biases in the CDR3 size distribution. Furthermore, we have estimated the size of the BV repertoire in the four different strains of mice. Interestingly, we have found that the BV repertoire size is proportional to the overall number of CD8+ splenocytes. This observation implies that BV diversity is positively correlated with the number of CD8+ cells, even when the number of CD8+ splenocytes is dramatically reduced (90 % in the double knockout mice).