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American Journal of Pathology, Vol 138, 1479-1484, Copyright © 1991 by American Society for Investigative Pathology

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Restricted V gene usage in T-cell lymphomas as detected by anti-T-cell receptor variable region reagents

S Poppema and B Hepperle
Department of Laboratory Medicine, Cross Cancer Institute, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.

Monoclonal antibodies reactive with variable regions of the human T- cell receptor (TCR) may be used to detect populations of T lymphocytes with restricted V gene usage. The authors have studied a series of 44 T- cell lymphomas with a panel of seven reagents reactive with four different TCR beta-chain variable region families. The authors found that, with this limited panel, restricted V gene usage of the neoplastic cells could be demonstrated in 29% of TCR-positive lymphomas. Whereas this is somewhat higher than expected, no preferential use of specific families could be demonstrated. An additional, unexpected finding was that most large cell T-cell lymphomas did not express TCR despite the presence of cytoplasmic CD3. The findings indicate that with a somewhat expanded panel it should be feasible to demonstrate restricted V gene usage as an indicator of clonality in a majority of T-cell lymphomas in a manner similar to the application of anti-immunoglobulin subclass antibodies in the diagnosis of clonal B cell proliferations.