Change of preferent usage of TCR-Vβ families between conventional T cells and Tregs
Recently, it has been reported that the TCR repertoire in Tregs is highly as diverse as one in conventional T cells and the usages of TCR-Vβ families overlapped between these T cell subsets. Therefore, the usage of 24 TCR-Vβ families was individually assessed between conventional T cells and Tregs in both control subjects and patients with AIN (Figure 5 ). Increased usages of TCR-Vβ 3, 7.1, 8, 9, 13.1, 16, 17, 20, and 22 were observed in conventional T cells compared with Tregs in both control subjects and patients with AIN. In contrast, the usages of TCR-Vβ 5.1, 5.2, 5.3, 12, 13.2, and 13.6 in Tregs were significantly increased compared with those observed in conventional T cells. These results were summarized in Figure 6 . Although there was a certain preference of usages of the TCR-Vβ repertoire between conventional T cells and Tregs in both control subjects and patients with AIN, usage of the TCR-Vβ 9 family was prominently different between control subjects and patients with AIN. All control subjects showed that the usage of TCR-Vβ 9 in conventional T cells was higher than that observed in Tregs. In contrast, patients with AIN did not demonstrate consistent variation between conventional T cells and Tregs. The highly increased usage of TCR-Vβ 9 in Tregs was observed in four patients with AIN in whom neutropenia persisted (Patient 2,3,4,7). There were no significantly different usages noted in the remaining 23 TCR-Vβ families between control subjects and patients with AIN.