Evolution of the tuberculin skin test reveals generalisable Mtb-reactive T cell metaclones

Abstract

Abstract T cells contribute to immune protection and pathogenesis in tuberculosis, but measurements of polyclonal responses have failed to resolve correlates of outcome. We report the temporal evaluation of the human in vivo clonal repertoire of Mycobacterium tuberculosis ( Mtb )-reactive T cell responses, by T cell receptor (TCR) sequencing at the site of the tuberculin skin test, as a model for a standardised antigenic challenge. Initial non-selective recruitment of T cells is followed by enrichment of Mtb -reactive clones arising from oligoclonal T cell proliferation. We introduce a modular computational pipeline, Metaclonotypist, to sensitively cluster distinct TCRs with shared epitope specificity, which we apply here to establish a catalogue of public Mtb -reactive HLA-restricted T cell metaclones. Although most in vivo Mtb -reactive T cells are private, 10 metaclones were sufficient to identify Mtb -T cell reactivity across our study population (N≥128), indicating striking population level immunodominance of specific TCR-peptide interactions that may inform patient stratification and vaccine development.