It was somewhat surprising to us that CD4+ T cells derived from both nonhealing (La) and self-healing (Lb) models displayed comparable TCR diversity in either draining LN- or lesion-derived CD4+ T cells (Figure 1). Furthermore, we found that the production of IFN-γ appeared to be evenly contributed by multiple rather this website than one or two dominant Vβ+ CD4+ T cells during La or Lb infection, which is different from the report with the dominant IL-4 production by Vβ4+ CD4+ T cells in L. major infection (20). Of note, the relative contribution of individual

Vβ cells to the total IFN-γ production appeared comparable between La and Lb infection (Figure 2). Therefore, IFN-γ-producing CD4+ T cells in Leishmania infection are not directly related to TCR Vβ

diversity. The TCR diversity-related studies are well advanced in viral and bacterial infection in mouse models and humans. For example, several reports have shown the conserved TCR repertoire expansion in primary and memory CD8+ T-cell responses to lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus or influenza virus epitopes in mice (23,28). With regard to murine infection with intracellular bacteria Listeria monocytogenes, although the narrowed ‘private’ TCR Vβ repertoire was found within rechallenged individual mice, the antigen-specific T cells detected by a tetramer-based Cilomilast approach revealed a relatively diverse TCR Vβ repertoire in primary and memory CD8+ T-cell populations (29,30). Likewise, diverse TCR Vβ usages in CD4+ and Buspirone HCl CD8+ T cells were reported during pulmonary Cryptococcus neoformans infection in mice (31). Because protozoan parasites contain relatively large genome sizes and complex protein profiles

but replicate relatively slow in vivo, our findings of a diverse rather than focused TCR Vβ repertoire in FACS analyses of CD4+ T cells during Leishmania infection may not be surprising. The potential concerns of this FACS-based approach include its biological relevance and detection limit. We took two approaches to address these issues. First, we performed detailed analyses for IFN-γ production among several major Vβ subsets (Vβ4, 6 and 8) and a minor Vβ subset (Vβ7). The interesting findings are (1) in comparison with La infection counterparts, Lb infection showed higher percentages of IFN-γ-producing cells in each of the tested individual TCR Vβ subsets in primary (Figure 2) and secondary infection (Figures 3 and 4) and (2) for a given Vβ subset, its relative contribution to IFN-γ production appeared comparable in La versus Lb infection, judged by the percentages of IFN-γ+ cells within its Vβ+ cells. These functional analyses again suggest a diverse rather than focused TCR Vβ repertoire in Leishmania infection. Second, we examined the CDR3 region of individual TCR Vβ by PCR- and gel-based techniques, because PCR-based spectratyping is a powerful tool to analyse the sizes of TCR CDR3 regions of the oligoclonal expansion of T cells (16–18).