Figure 4

OT displays higher representativeness of specific B-cell receptor CDR3 lengths. (A) Representative profiles of the BCR CDR3 region of the VH3 Ig family, for the IgM isotype, showing higher representativeness for the 16-aa CDR3 length. Analyses were performed using PBMC cDNA of study individuals, after fragment analysis of fluorescent PCR products on a 3730x1 DNA Analyzer (Applied Biosystems). Profiles were obtained after analysis with GeneMapper software (Applied Biosystems). The IgM (B) and IgG (C) repertoire diversity was calculated by the sum of the number of different BCR CDR3 lengths expressed in each individual. The OT group exhibited expansion of clones expressing the BCR CDR3 lengths of the 16-aa VH3 family, for the IgM isotype (D), and 5-aa VH1 family, for the IgG isotype (E). The black dashed line corresponds to the point in which we considered higher gene expression than in healthy individuals (&gt;2). The gray dashed line corresponds to the point at which we considered expression lower than in healthy individuals. OT group, n = 5; CR group, n = 11; Sta group, n = 17; HI group, n = 11. *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001.