# T cell diversity during chronic inflammation

> **NIH NIH R03** · UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH AT PITTSBURGH · 2022 · $73,183

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY
Thymus-derived lymphocytes (T cells) are an essential part of host defense and determine the specificity of the
immune response to antigens. The overall goal of this proposal is to examine T cells in a chronic inflammatory
condition. Inflammation can be driven by activation of various types of effector T cells or dysregulation of
regulatory T cells, however, whether these different subsets of T cells share the same TCR and recognize the
same antigen epitope is largely unknown. Furthermore, the link between gene expression and clonal expansion
at single cell level has not been established during chronic inflammation in the lung. We plan to perform single-
cell RNA sequencing of T cells from the airways of patients with advanced cystic fibrosis (CF) lung disease
compared to non-disease controls to fill this knowledge gap. We will use CF as a model to study chronic
inflammatory states in the lung. We hypothesize that T cells in the chronically inflamed CF airway have distinctly
different transcriptomic profiles compared to non-disease T cells, and using TCR analysis, we postulate
increased clonal expansion and Type 17 immunity bias will be observed in CF T cells. Our research aims include:
1) To investigate T cell phenotypes, gene regulatory pathways, and antigenicity within the CF airway and (2) To
validate top gene candidates of T cells within the CF airway identified using single-cell RNA sequencing.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10451243
- **Project number:** 1R03AI163730-01A1
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH AT PITTSBURGH
- **Principal Investigator:** Keven Mara Robinson
- **Activity code:** R03 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2022
- **Award amount:** $73,183
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2022-02-01 → 2024-01-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10451243

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10451243, T cell diversity during chronic inflammation (1R03AI163730-01A1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10451243. Licensed CC0.

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