TY - JOUR T1 - Characterisation of T cell clonotypes that accumulated in multiple joints of patients with rheumatoid arthritis JF - Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases JO - Ann Rheum Dis SP - 546 LP - 553 DO - 10.1136/ard.58.9.546 VL - 58 IS - 9 AU - Manae Kurokawa AU - Tomohiro Kato AU - Kayo Masuko-Hongo AU - Shin-ichiro Ueda AU - Tetsuji Kobata AU - Mitsuo Okubo AU - Tomoe Nishimaki AU - Tatsuya Akaza AU - Shin-ich Yoshino AU - Reiji Kasukawa AU - Kusuki Nishioka AU - Kazuhiko Yamamoto Y1 - 1999/09/01 UR - http://ard.bmj.com/content/58/9/546.abstract N2 - OBJECTIVE To investigate whether identical T cell clonotypes accumulate in multiple rheumatoid joints, the clonality of T cells that had infiltrated into synovial tissue (ST) samples simultaneously obtained from multiple joints of patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) was analysed.METHODS T cell receptor (TCR) β gene transcripts, amplified by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction from ST and peripheral blood lymphocytes of five RA patients, were subjected to single strand conformation polymorphism analysis and DNA sequencing.RESULTS Approximately 40% of accumulated T cell clonotypes found in one joint of a patient were found in multiple joints in the same patient. Furthermore, identical amino acid sequences were found in TCR β junctional regions of these clonotypes from different patients with at least one HLA molecule match.CONCLUSIONS The T cell clonotypes accumulating in multiple rheumatoid joints may be involved in the perpetuation of polyarthritis by reacting to antigens common to these multiple joints. ER -