Related Experiment Videos
Allelic exclusion in anamniotic vertebrates
1Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, State University of New York, Health Science Center at Brooklyn, Brooklyn, New York 11203-2098, USA.
Clonal selection, a central principle in immunology, is predicated on one lymphocyte making one kind of antibody or T cell receptor. At loci encoding antigen receptors only one allele is used, and this has been shown in normal lymphocytes from frogs to humans. Fish antibody chains, however, are encoded by multiple loci, and at some of these loci the gene segments are already rearranged in the germline. The differences in germline organization and the uncoupling of rearrangement and expression raise questions as to whether some of the early vertebrates might be an exception to the clonal selection theory.
Clonal selection, a central principle in immunology, is predicated on one lymphocyte making one kind of antibody or T cell receptor. At loci encoding antigen receptors only one allele is used, and this has been shown in normal lymphocytes from frogs to humans. Fish antibody chains, however, are encoded by multiple loci, and at some of these loci the gene segments are already rearranged in the germline. The differences in germline organization and the uncoupling of rearrangement and expression raise questions as to whether some of the early vertebrates might be an exception to the clonal selection theory.