Selective expression of RAG-2 in chicken B cells undergoing immunoglobulin gene conversion
Abstract
Chickens create their immunoglobulin (Ig) repertoires during B cell development in the bursa of Fabriclus by intrachromosomal gene conversion. Recent evidence has suggested that Ig gene conversion may involve cis-acting DNA elements related to those involved in V(D)J recombination. Therefore, we have examined the potential role of the V(D)J recombination activating genes, RAG-1 and RAG-2, in regulating chicken Ig gene conversion. In contrast to the coexpression of RAG-1 and RAG-2 observed in mammalian B cells that undergo V(D)J recombination, chicken B cells isolated from the bursa of Fabricius express high levels of the RAG-2 mRNA but do not express RAG-1 mRNA. The developmental and phenotypic characteristics of the bursal lymphocytes and chicken B cell lines that express RAG-2 mRNA demonstrate that selective RAG-2 expression occurs specifically in B cells undergoing Ig diversification by gene conversion. These data suggest that RAG-2 plays a fundamental role in Ig-specific gene conversion.
Additional Information
© 1991 Cell Press. Received 2 November 1990, Revised 20 November 1990. We thank our colleagues Jeff Leiden, Eric Humphries, and John Lowe for helpful discussions and review of the manuscript, and Beverly Burck for preparation of figures. This work was supported by Public Service Award CA48023 to C. B. T., and CA51466 to D. B. from the National Institutes of Health, and by fellowships from the Whitaker Health Sciences Fund (M. A. O.) and the Life and Health Insurance Medical Research Fund (D. G. S.). The costs of publication of this article were defrayed in part by the payment of page charges. This article must therefore be hereby marked "advertisement" in accordance with 18 USC Section 1734 solely to indicate this fact. GenBank Accession Numbers: The accession numbers for the sequences reported in this paper are M58530 (chicken RAG-1) and M58531 (chicken RAG-2).Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 103885
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- CaltechAUTHORS:20200612-135406177
- CA48023
- NIH Predoctoral Fellowship
- CA51466
- NIH
- Whitaker Health Science Fund
- Life and Health Insurance Medical Research Fund
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2020-06-12Created from EPrint's datestamp field
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2021-11-16Created from EPrint's last_modified field