T-Cell Receptor Diversity in the Human Immune System

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Perustieteiden korkeakoulu | Master's thesis
Ask about the availability of the thesis by sending email to the Aalto University Learning Centre oppimiskeskus@aalto.fi

Authors

Date

2015-08-27

Department

Major/Subject

Computational Systems Biology

Mcode

IL3013

Degree programme

Master's Degree Programme in Computational and Systems Biology (euSYSBIO)

Language

en

Pages

48+5

Series

Abstract

T-Cell Receptors are heterodimeric molecules composed of two hyper-variable protein chains. TCR Diversity is widely recognized as a direct measure of immune competence as it quantifies the variety of foreign antigens our immune system can recognize, and hence act upon. TCR diversity is generated by V(D)J recombination, a random process which rearranges variable (V), joining (J) and sometimes also diversity (D) segments of the gene encoding the antigen-binding region of the TCR. With the advent of high-throughput sequencing technology it is now possible to sequence a very large number of cells for these genes. However the immune cell count in any healthy individual is still beyond the currently feasible limits for sequencing and thus it requires that the total population diversity be estimated from a sample. Here, state-of-the-art approaches are used to model the sample diversity from millions of cells from thymus tissues. The population density is then estimated based on these models. Both parametric and non-parametric approaches are considered.

Description

Supervisor

Lähdesmäki, Harri

Thesis advisor

Saramäki, Jari

Keywords

t-cell receptors, immune diversity, recombination, parametric and non-parametric models, high-throughput sequencing

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Permanent link to this item

https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:aalto-201509184438

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[dipl] Perustieteiden korkeakoulu / SCI