Impaired thymic output and restricted T-cell repertoire in two infants with immunodeficiency and early-onset generalized dermatitis

We evaluated the T-cell repertoire and the thymic output in two infants, one with Omenn Syndrome (OS) and another with complete DiGeorge Syndrome (DGS), who developed generalized dermatitis. The patients shared common T-cell abnormalities, as demonstrated by the low response to mitogenic stimulation, by an unusual usage of specific T-cell receptor (TCR) segments, and by a reduction of TCR diversity in both alpha/beta and gamma/delta populations. Furthermore, they both showed an impaired thymic function, as assessed by the low number of TCR recombination excision circles, which are formed from excised DNA during the rearrangement of TCR genes. These data indicated that generalized erythrodermia may be present in different forms of T-cell immunodeficiency and may reflect intrinsic defects in either V(D)J recombination or in thymic development, leading to the peripheral expansion,of T-cell clonotypes, that bear peculiar TCR chains. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.