The structure and functional analysis of canine T-cell receptor beta region

VDJ recombination is a key process in T-cell receptor (TCR) and immunoglobulin (Ig) molecules development. Comparison of ENSEMBL and GenBank database information revealed major differences in dog T-cell receptor beta (TRB) region annotations. ENSEMBL based genomic alignment of dog TRB sequence with human sequence and annotation showed a very similar structure of TRB. However, there is only one cluster of DJC segments in dogs. In dog, 38 V segments are followed by 1 D segment, 6 J segments and 1 C segment. Like humans and mice, dogs have another V segment opposite in orientation downstream of the C segment. V segments anticipated were analyzed using the RT-PCR and capillary electrophoresis. Thirty-one of them were identified in samples of thymus and spleen RNA and thus believed to be subjected to chromosomal rearrangement and RNA splicing. We identified and analyzed probable structure of canine TCR beta region, which is different when compared to sequences published in GenBank or ENSEMBL databases.