Publication Date:
1988-09-09
Description:
Most T lymphocytes express an antigen-specific receptor composed of two subunits, alpha and beta, each of which can exhibit structural variability. A complex selection process operates on T cells during development in the thymus such that cells expressing only particular alpha beta-receptors migrate to the periphery. The alpha-chain repertoire was dissected at different stages of the selection process by using the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) technique to amplify only those transcripts of a particular variable region gene (V58). Sequences from these V58 cDNAs reveal the predominant expression of four joining (J) segments by T cells in the adult thymus, suggesting that molecular or cellular processes select particular V alpha J alpha combinations during development. T cells expressing one of these V58J alpha chains appear to have been negatively selected at a later stage, since these transcripts were present in the spleen at approximately one-tenth the level in the thymus. Results also indicate that residues present at the V alpha J alpha junction may be important in an early selection process.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Roth, M E -- Lacy, M J -- McNeil, L K -- Kranz, D M -- AI24635/AI/NIAID NIH HHS/ -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 1988 Sep 9;241(4871):1354-8.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Department of Biochemistry, University of Illinois, Urbana 61801.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2970673" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
Animals
;
Base Sequence
;
Genes
;
*Major Histocompatibility Complex
;
Mice
;
Mice, Inbred Strains
;
Molecular Sequence Data
;
Receptors, Antigen, T-Cell/*genetics
;
Receptors, Antigen, T-Cell, alpha-beta
;
Recombination, Genetic
;
Spleen/physiology
;
T-Lymphocytes/*physiology
;
Thymus Gland/physiology
;
Tissue Distribution
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
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