Powered by pairing: the surrogate light chain amplifies immunoglobulin heavy chain signaling and pre-selects the

Christian Vettermann1, Kai Herrmann, Hans-Martin Jäck

  • 1Division of Molecular Immunology, Department of Internal Medicine III, Nikolaus-Fiebiger-Center for Molecular Medicine, Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nürnberg, D-91054 Erlangen, Germany.

Seminars in Immunology
|February 9, 2006
PubMed

Selective expansion of functional pre-B cells is accomplished by the assembly of a signaling-competent pre-B cell receptor (pre-BCR) consisting of immunoglobulin mu heavy chains (muHC), surrogate light chains (SLC) and Igalpha/Igbeta. Here, we review recent data showing that muHCs, in the absence of SLC, deliver autonomous differentiation signals. However, enhanced signaling necessary for pre-B cell expansion requires cross-linking of pre-BCRs via the non-immunoglobulin tail of SLC's subunit lambda5. We also discuss how SLC's ability to modulate the strength of pre-BCR signals is controlled by a muHC's idiotype and its affinity to the chaperone BiP. In this model, BiP in concert with SLC functions as a pre-selector of the antibody repertoire.

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