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Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America logoLink to Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
. 1986 Jul;83(13):4883–4886. doi: 10.1073/pnas.83.13.4883

Mutation affecting the expression of immunoglobulin variable regions in the rabbit.

A S Kelus, S Weiss
PMCID: PMC323847  PMID: 3014517

Abstract

We have found a variant of the allotype allele a2 in the rabbit, which presumably arose by mutation, that segregates as expected for an allele at the a locus. This allele is called "ali" and the corresponding rabbit strain is called "Alicia." In heterozygous animals (ali/a1 and ali/a3) the concentration of a2 molecules is lower by a factor of 1000 than in standard a2/a2 homozygotes. In homozygous ali/ali individuals the a2 concentration varies with age--i.e., very low in young rabbits and higher in older ones--but it never reaches normal levels. The low level of a2 is compensated by increased amounts of a-negative molecules. Southern blot analysis did not reveal any gross changes in the intron between JH and C mu (joining region of immunoglobulin heavy chain and constant region of immunoglobulin mu chain) or in the number of VH gene segments encoding a locus specificities. We suggest that the ali phenotype is due to a mutation in a control element.

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Selected References

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