Adaptive Biotechnologies' immunoSEQ® Assay Provides Groundbreaking Insight into T-Cell Fate, Significantly Advancing Understanding of Adaptive Immunity

SEATTLE, May 11, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Adaptive Biotechnologies, the leader in next generation sequencing (NGS) to profile T- and B-cell receptors, demonstrated in today's issue of Nature Medicine the ability of the immunoSEQ^® Assay to interrogate cell fate in naturally occurring T-cell populations. Contrary to previous thinking, the results show that different types of T cells often descend from a common ancestor. These findings are a groundbreaking advance in the understanding of adaptive immunity and its potential role in pathogenic response.

The study, led by Thomas S. Kupper, MD, Harvard Skin Disease Research Center, Department of Dermatology, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, Ma., determined how different types of memory T cells work together to fight a pathogen. "Previous studies have suggested that naive T cells have followed a 'one cell, one fate' paradigm; where a naive T cell can only become one type of memory cell after antigen stimulation," said Kupper. "Unlike previous thinking, these findings are consistent with a 'one cell, more than one fate' paradigm. The immune system builds two different anatomic compartments of immune memory from the same precursor T cells. The immunoSEQ Assay, which allowed simultaneous tracking of thousands of naturally occurring T cells, enabled this important observation."

In the study, Adaptive's immunoSEQ Assay was used to comprehensively characterize the antigen-reactive T-cell repertoires in non-transgenic mice exposed to multiple antigens to interrogate cell fate in naturally occurring T-cell immune responses.

Harlan Robins, Chief Scientific Officer and Co-founder of Adaptive Biotechnologies and study author, said, "Adaptive is honored to be a part of this groundbreaking study with Harvard, and is committed to using our sequencing assay to enhance our understanding of T-cell differentiation. The more we learn about how T cells differentiate and mature the closer we are to understanding their role in pathogenic response."

The study data can also be accessed through Adaptive's Published Projects: http://adaptivebiotech.com/pub/kupper-2015-naturemed. Adaptive is building the world's first immunosequencing community, starting with Published Projects, an open-access interactive collection of immunoSEQ project data that enables researchers to leverage shared intelligence. 

About Memory T Cells

Memory T cells are a subset of long-lived T cells that have previously encountered and responded to an antigen (invader). These T cells "remember" the strategy used to defeat previous invaders, such as bacteria, viruses and cancer.

There are two types of memory T cells, central memory T cells (in lymph nodes) and resident memory t cells (in peripheral tissues). These two types of T cells play complementary but distinct roles in protective immunity.

About immunoSEQ

Adaptive helps researchers make discoveries in oncology, autoimmune disorders and infectious diseases by offering fee-for-service access to its proprietary immune profiling sequencing technology under the immunoSEQ^® brand name. The immunoSEQ Kit for research use only is now available to facilitate the integration of immunosequencing into research centers. The immunoSEQ Assay is not for use in diagnostic procedures.

About Adaptive Biotechnologies

Adaptive Biotechnologies is the pioneer and leader in combining high-throughput sequencing and expert bioinformatics to profile T-cell and B-cell receptors. Adaptive is bringing the accuracy and sensitivity of its immunosequencing platform into laboratories around the world to drive groundbreaking research in cancer and other immune-mediated diseases. Adaptive is also translating immunosequencing discoveries into clinical diagnostics to improve patient care.

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SOURCE Adaptive Biotechnologies