New insight into the Germline Genes and CDR3 Repertoire of the TCRβ chain in Chiroptera

Bats are natural reservoirs of many viruses, but their unique immune system allows them to co-exist with viruses and rarely manifest disease. Our understanding of the bat adaptive immune system is limited due to the complex composition of immune repertoire and the difficulty of analysis. To explore our understanding of bats’ t-cell immune system, we established a reference library of TCR-β germline genes based on the gene annotation of Rhinolophus ferrumequinum (Rhinolophidae), Phyllostomus discolor (Phyllostomidae) and Pipistrellus pipistrellus (Vespertilionidae). Further, we undertook the analysis of the Rhinolophus affinis TCR-β repertoire. The bats’ TCR-β repertoire were formed by the rearrangement of the V-D-J-C genes with a D-J/V-D deletion and insertion, showing a highly diversity; the conserved amino acids suggest that bats’ T-cell recognition of antigens is MHC-restricted. The sequencing and analysis processes of immune repertoire established in this study can be applied to the study of adaptive immune system in bats.