Selective expansions of T cells expressing V beta 8 and V beta 13 in skin lesions of patients with chronic cutaneous lupus erythematosus.

There are several clinical types of cutaneous lupus erythematosus (LE), including acute cutaneous LE (ACLE), which occurs in 50-60% of patients with systemic LE (SLE), chronic cutaneous LE (CCLE), which is almost the same as discoid LE (DLE), and subacute cutaneous LE (SCLE). Although several important hypotheses have been proposed to explain cutaneous LE, the pathomechanisms still remain complicated and obscure. Of special interest is whether and how the T cell receptor (TCR) repertoire of infiltrating lymphocytes is involved in the development of the different types. To address this issue, we immunohistochemically examined the V beta usage of infiltrating T cells in skin lesions, as well as in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) of patients with cutaneous LE. The number of V beta 3.1 CD3+ cells in the PBMC of patients with ACLE and CCLE was significantly lower than in controls. In contrast, the number of V beta 3.1 CD3+ cells was elevated in the skin lesion of CCLE over that in psoriasis vulgaris or atopic dermatitis. Furthermore, skin lesions in CCLE patients showed a higher incidence of V beta 8.1 CD3+ and V beta 13.3 CD3+ cells than did those in ACLE patients. These results suggest that skin lesions of CCLE are oligoclonally associated with selective expansions of TCR V beta chains and may be induced by antigen stimuli, including superantigens.