TY - JOUR TI - Early life imprints the hierarchy of T cell clone sizes AU - Gaimann, Mario U AU - Nguyen, Maximilian AU - Desponds, Jonathan AU - Mayer, Andreas A2 - Barkai, Naama A2 - Nourmohammad, Armita A2 - Yates, Andrew J A2 - Levine, Herbert A2 - de Boer, Rob J VL - 9 PY - 2020 DA - 2020/12/21 SP - e61639 C1 - eLife 2020;9:e61639 DO - 10.7554/eLife.61639 UR - https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.61639 AB - The adaptive immune system responds to pathogens by selecting clones of cells with specific receptors. While clonal selection in response to particular antigens has been studied in detail, it is unknown how a lifetime of exposures to many antigens collectively shape the immune repertoire. Here, using mathematical modeling and statistical analyses of T cell receptor sequencing data, we develop a quantitative theory of human T cell dynamics compatible with the statistical laws of repertoire organization. We find that clonal expansions during a perinatal time window leave a long-lasting imprint on the human T cell repertoire, which is only slowly reshaped by fluctuating clonal selection during adult life. Our work provides a mechanism for how early clonal dynamics imprint the hierarchy of T cell clone sizes with implications for pathogen defense and autoimmunity. KW - immune repertoire KW - power-law scaling KW - imprinting KW - T cell immunity KW - repertoire sequencing KW - fluctuating fitness KW - high-dimensional ecology JF - eLife SN - 2050-084X PB - eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd ER -