Adaptive Biotechnologies, a commercial-stage biotechnology company that aims to translate the genetics of the adaptive immune system into clinical products to diagnose and treat disease, presented data on T-cell receptor (TCR) sequences associated with Crohn’s disease (CD) during an oral presentation today at the 17th Congress of European Crohn’s and Colitis Organisation (ECCO) being held virtually February 16-19. The study identified and characterized TCR sequences associated with CD utilizing Adaptive’s immunoSEQ® technology, providing fundamental insights into the body’s response to CD at the cellular level.
The immunoSEQ assay uses sequencing technology to decipher the complexity of the adaptive immune system. This multi-national study, which was also recently published in The Journal of Crohns and Colitis, utilized immunoSEQ technology to analyze TCRs from blood samples of 1,738 CD cases and 4,970 healthy donors. Intestinal tissue samples from a subset of 380 cases were also analyzed. Through this analysis, 1,121 CD-associated TCRs were identified in patients’ blood and verified in tissue. The identification of disease-specific TCRs is an important first step in identifying a signal and developing an algorithm to inform development of a diagnostic test for CD.
“The study identified Crohn’s-specific TCRs in both the blood and tissue of patients with Crohn’s disease, including a large subset that are ’public,’ or shared among patients,” said Matthieu Allez, MD, PhD, Professor and Head, Department of Gastroenterology, Hospital Saint-Louis, Paris. “These findings suggest that blood-based testing for this often-debilitating disease could be used to diagnose and more effectively manage the disease through the identification of these disease specific T-cell receptors.”
