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Rearrangement of Immunoglobulin Genes in Shark Germ Cells

The variable (V), (diversity [D]), and joining (J) region recombinases (recombination activating genes [RAGs]) can perform like transposases and are thought to have initiated development of the adaptive immune system in early vertebrates by splitting archaic V genes with transposable elements. In ca...

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Autores principales: Lee, Susan S., Fitch, David, Flajnik, Martin F., Hsu, Ellen
Formato: Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: The Rockefeller University Press 2000
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2193156/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10811858
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author Lee, Susan S.
Fitch, David
Flajnik, Martin F.
Hsu, Ellen
author_facet Lee, Susan S.
Fitch, David
Flajnik, Martin F.
Hsu, Ellen
author_sort Lee, Susan S.
collection PubMed
description The variable (V), (diversity [D]), and joining (J) region recombinases (recombination activating genes [RAGs]) can perform like transposases and are thought to have initiated development of the adaptive immune system in early vertebrates by splitting archaic V genes with transposable elements. In cartilaginous fishes, the immunoglobulin (Ig) light chain genes are organized as multiple VJ-constant (C) clusters; some loci are capable of rearrangement while others contain fused VJ. The latter may be key to understanding the evolutionary role of RAG. Are they relics of the archaic genes, or are they results of rearrangement in germ cells? Our data suggest that some fused VJ genes are not only recently rearranged, but also resulted from RAG-like activity involving hairpin intermediates. Expression studies show that these, like some other germline-joined Ig sequences, are expressed at significant levels only early in ontogeny. We suggest that a rejoined Ig gene may not merely be a sequence restricting antibody diversity, but is potentially a novel receptor no longer tied to somatic RAG expression and rearrangement. From the combined data, we arrived at the unexpected conclusion that, in some vertebrates, RAG is still an active force in changing the genome.
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spelling pubmed-21931562008-04-16 Rearrangement of Immunoglobulin Genes in Shark Germ Cells Lee, Susan S. Fitch, David Flajnik, Martin F. Hsu, Ellen J Exp Med Original Article The variable (V), (diversity [D]), and joining (J) region recombinases (recombination activating genes [RAGs]) can perform like transposases and are thought to have initiated development of the adaptive immune system in early vertebrates by splitting archaic V genes with transposable elements. In cartilaginous fishes, the immunoglobulin (Ig) light chain genes are organized as multiple VJ-constant (C) clusters; some loci are capable of rearrangement while others contain fused VJ. The latter may be key to understanding the evolutionary role of RAG. Are they relics of the archaic genes, or are they results of rearrangement in germ cells? Our data suggest that some fused VJ genes are not only recently rearranged, but also resulted from RAG-like activity involving hairpin intermediates. Expression studies show that these, like some other germline-joined Ig sequences, are expressed at significant levels only early in ontogeny. We suggest that a rejoined Ig gene may not merely be a sequence restricting antibody diversity, but is potentially a novel receptor no longer tied to somatic RAG expression and rearrangement. From the combined data, we arrived at the unexpected conclusion that, in some vertebrates, RAG is still an active force in changing the genome. The Rockefeller University Press 2000-05-15 /pmc/articles/PMC2193156/ /pubmed/10811858 Text en © 2000 The Rockefeller University Press This article is distributed under the terms of an Attribution–Noncommercial–Share Alike–No Mirror Sites license for the first six months after the publication date (see http://www.rupress.org/terms). After six months it is available under a Creative Commons License (Attribution–Noncommercial–Share Alike 4.0 Unported license, as described at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).
spellingShingle Original Article
Lee, Susan S.
Fitch, David
Flajnik, Martin F.
Hsu, Ellen
Rearrangement of Immunoglobulin Genes in Shark Germ Cells
title Rearrangement of Immunoglobulin Genes in Shark Germ Cells
title_full Rearrangement of Immunoglobulin Genes in Shark Germ Cells
title_fullStr Rearrangement of Immunoglobulin Genes in Shark Germ Cells
title_full_unstemmed Rearrangement of Immunoglobulin Genes in Shark Germ Cells
title_short Rearrangement of Immunoglobulin Genes in Shark Germ Cells
title_sort rearrangement of immunoglobulin genes in shark germ cells
topic Original Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2193156/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10811858
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