Immortalization and Functional Screening of Natively Paired Human T Cell Receptor Repertoires

Abstract

Functional analyses of the T cell receptor (TCR) landscape can reveal critical information about protection from disease and molecular responses to vaccines. However, it has proven difficult to combine advanced next-generation sequencing technologies with methods to decode the peptide-major histocompatibility complex (pMHC) specificity of individual TCRs. Here we developed a new high-throughput approach to enable repertoire-scale functional evaluations of natively paired TCRs. In particular, we leveraged the immortalized nature of physically linked TCR:{beta} amplicon libraries to analyze binding against multiple recombinant pMHCs on a repertoire scale. To exemplify the utility of this approach, we also performed affinity-based functional mapping in conjunction with quantitative next-generation sequencing to track antigen-specific TCRs. These data successfully validated a new immortalization and screening platform to facilitate detailed molecular analyses of human TCRs against diverse antigen targets associated with health, vaccination, or disease.