Abstract
We previously detected mRNAs in a number of human T cell lines with a probe from within the Ig VH gene locus. We now show these mRNAs consist of Ig VH genes expressed in T cells. In one human T cell line, two RNA species have been studied and found to come from transcripts of unrearranged VH segments in which the leader exon, normally associated with VH transcripts in B cells, is replaced by a novel 5' exon (ET) not encoding a hydrophobic leader peptide. In genomic DNA, this new ET exon is adjacent to a pseudo-VH gene that has not been observed in mature mRNA. This implies that RNA splicing controls association of the new exon with the expressed VH segments. Hence, VH transcription does indeed occur in T cells, but is qualitatively different from that in B cells.
Full Text
The Full Text of this article is available as a PDF (362.5 KB).
Selected References
These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.
- Baer R., Chen K. C., Smith S. D., Rabbitts T. H. Fusion of an immunoglobulin variable gene and a T cell receptor constant gene in the chromosome 14 inversion associated with T cell tumors. Cell. 1985 Dec;43(3 Pt 2):705–713. doi: 10.1016/0092-8674(85)90243-0. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Baer R., Forster A., Rabbitts T. H. The mechanism of chromosome 14 inversion in a human T cell lymphoma. Cell. 1987 Jul 3;50(1):97–105. doi: 10.1016/0092-8674(87)90666-0. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Denny C. T., Yoshikai Y., Mak T. W., Smith S. D., Hollis G. F., Kirsch I. R. A chromosome 14 inversion in a T-cell lymphoma is caused by site-specific recombination between immunoglobulin and T-cell receptor loci. Nature. 1986 Apr 10;320(6062):549–551. doi: 10.1038/320549a0. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Feinberg A. P., Vogelstein B. A technique for radiolabeling DNA restriction endonuclease fragments to high specific activity. Anal Biochem. 1983 Jul 1;132(1):6–13. doi: 10.1016/0003-2697(83)90418-9. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Kemp D. J., Adams J. M., Mottram P. L., Thomas W. R., Walker I. D., Miller J. F. A search for messenger RNA molecules bearing immunoglobulin VH nucleotide sequences in T cells. J Exp Med. 1982 Dec 1;156(6):1848–1853. doi: 10.1084/jem.156.6.1848. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Kronenberg M., Kraig E., Siu G., Kapp J. A., Kappler J., Marrack P., Pierce C. W., Hood L. Three T cell hybridomas do not contain detectable heavy chain variable gene transcripts. J Exp Med. 1983 Jul 1;158(1):210–227. doi: 10.1084/jem.158.1.210. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- LeFranc M. P., Forster A., Baer R., Stinson M. A., Rabbitts T. H. Diversity and rearrangement of the human T cell rearranging gamma genes: nine germ-line variable genes belonging to two subgroups. Cell. 1986 Apr 25;45(2):237–246. doi: 10.1016/0092-8674(86)90388-0. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Matthyssens G., Rabbitts T. H. Structure and multiplicity of genes for the human immunoglobulin heavy chain variable region. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1980 Nov;77(11):6561–6565. doi: 10.1073/pnas.77.11.6561. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Messing J., Vieira J. A new pair of M13 vectors for selecting either DNA strand of double-digest restriction fragments. Gene. 1982 Oct;19(3):269–276. doi: 10.1016/0378-1119(82)90016-6. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Rajewsky K., Takemori T. Genetics, expression, and function of idiotypes. Annu Rev Immunol. 1983;1:569–607. doi: 10.1146/annurev.iy.01.040183.003033. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Sanger F., Coulson A. R., Barrell B. G., Smith A. J., Roe B. A. Cloning in single-stranded bacteriophage as an aid to rapid DNA sequencing. J Mol Biol. 1980 Oct 25;143(2):161–178. doi: 10.1016/0022-2836(80)90196-5. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Southern E. M. Detection of specific sequences among DNA fragments separated by gel electrophoresis. J Mol Biol. 1975 Nov 5;98(3):503–517. doi: 10.1016/s0022-2836(75)80083-0. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Staden R. The current status and portability of our sequence handling software. Nucleic Acids Res. 1986 Jan 10;14(1):217–231. doi: 10.1093/nar/14.1.217. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Tonegawa S. Somatic generation of antibody diversity. Nature. 1983 Apr 14;302(5909):575–581. doi: 10.1038/302575a0. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Ucker D. S., Kurasawa Y., Tonegawa S. An unusual clonotypic determinant on a cytotoxic T lymphocyte line is encoded by an immunoglobulin heavy chain variable region gene. J Immunol. 1985 Dec;135(6):4204–4214. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]