Skip to main content
PMC home page
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
. 1993 May 1;90(9):4319–4323. doi: 10.1073/pnas.90.9.4319

The sizes of the CDR3 hypervariable regions of the murine T-cell receptor beta chains vary as a function of the recombined germ-line segments.

C Pannetier 1, M Cochet 1, S Darche 1, A Casrouge 1, M Zöller 1, P Kourilsky 1
PMCID: PMC46498  PMID: 8483950

Abstract

A method using PCR amplification and primer extension with fluorescent oligonucleotides was developed to analyze T-cell repertoires. The sizes of the hypervariable CDR3-like regions of the murine T-cell antigen receptor beta chains were measured for all possible V beta-J beta combinations. This analysis shows that beta chains are distributed into at least 2000 groups, a value that provides a lower limit to their complexity. The CDR3 sizes appear to be dependent on the J beta and especially the V beta segment used and correlates with amino acid sequence motifs in the corresponding CDR1 region. This feature of T-cell receptors is discussed.

Full text

PDF
4319

Images in this article

4322Fig. 3
on p.4322

Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

  1. Alt F. W., Oltz E. M., Young F., Gorman J., Taccioli G., Chen J. VDJ recombination. Immunol Today. 1992 Aug;13(8):306–314. doi: 10.1016/0167-5699(92)90043-7. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  2. Ashwell J. D., Klusner R. D. Genetic and mutational analysis of the T-cell antigen receptor. Annu Rev Immunol. 1990;8:139–167. doi: 10.1146/annurev.iy.08.040190.001035. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  3. Bogue M., Candéias S., Benoist C., Mathis D. A special repertoire of alpha:beta T cells in neonatal mice. EMBO J. 1991 Dec;10(12):3647–3654. doi: 10.1002/j.1460-2075.1991.tb04931.x. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  4. Chien Y. H., Gascoigne N. R., Kavaler J., Lee N. E., Davis M. M. Somatic recombination in a murine T-cell receptor gene. Nature. 1984 May 24;309(5966):322–326. doi: 10.1038/309322a0. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  5. Chirgwin J. M., Przybyla A. E., MacDonald R. J., Rutter W. J. Isolation of biologically active ribonucleic acid from sources enriched in ribonuclease. Biochemistry. 1979 Nov 27;18(24):5294–5299. doi: 10.1021/bi00591a005. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  6. Chothia C., Boswell D. R., Lesk A. M. The outline structure of the T-cell alpha beta receptor. EMBO J. 1988 Dec 1;7(12):3745–3755. doi: 10.1002/j.1460-2075.1988.tb03258.x. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  7. Claverie J. M., Prochnicka-Chalufour A., Bougueleret L. Implications of a Fab-like structure for the T-cell receptor. Immunol Today. 1989 Jan;10(1):10–14. doi: 10.1016/0167-5699(89)90058-3. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  8. Cochet M., Pannetier C., Regnault A., Darche S., Leclerc C., Kourilsky P. Molecular detection and in vivo analysis of the specific T cell response to a protein antigen. Eur J Immunol. 1992 Oct;22(10):2639–2647. doi: 10.1002/eji.1830221025. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  9. Corpet F. Multiple sequence alignment with hierarchical clustering. Nucleic Acids Res. 1988 Nov 25;16(22):10881–10890. doi: 10.1093/nar/16.22.10881. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  10. Davis M. M., Bjorkman P. J. T-cell antigen receptor genes and T-cell recognition. Nature. 1988 Aug 4;334(6181):395–402. doi: 10.1038/334395a0. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  11. Feeney A. J. Junctional sequences of fetal T cell receptor beta chains have few N regions. J Exp Med. 1991 Jul 1;174(1):115–124. doi: 10.1084/jem.174.1.115. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  12. Gascoigne N. R., Chien Y., Becker D. M., Kavaler J., Davis M. M. Genomic organization and sequence of T-cell receptor beta-chain constant- and joining-region genes. Nature. 1984 Aug 2;310(5976):387–391. doi: 10.1038/310387a0. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  13. Jores R., Alzari P. M., Meo T. Resolution of hypervariable regions in T-cell receptor beta chains by a modified Wu-Kabat index of amino acid diversity. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1990 Dec;87(23):9138–9142. doi: 10.1073/pnas.87.23.9138. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  14. Kourilsky P., Claverie J. M. MHC-antigen interaction: what does the T cell receptor see? Adv Immunol. 1989;45:107–193. doi: 10.1016/s0065-2776(08)60693-8. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  15. Kronenberg M., Siu G., Hood L. E., Shastri N. The molecular genetics of the T-cell antigen receptor and T-cell antigen recognition. Annu Rev Immunol. 1986;4:529–591. doi: 10.1146/annurev.iy.04.040186.002525. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  16. Louie M. C., Nelson C. A., Loh D. Y. Identification and characterization of new murine T cell receptor beta chain variable region (V beta) genes. J Exp Med. 1989 Dec 1;170(6):1987–1998. doi: 10.1084/jem.170.6.1987. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  17. Malissen M., Minard K., Mjolsness S., Kronenberg M., Goverman J., Hunkapiller T., Prystowsky M. B., Yoshikai Y., Fitch F., Mak T. W. Mouse T cell antigen receptor: structure and organization of constant and joining gene segments encoding the beta polypeptide. Cell. 1984 Jul;37(3):1101–1110. doi: 10.1016/0092-8674(84)90444-6. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  18. Novotný J., Tonegawa S., Saito H., Kranz D. M., Eisen H. N. Secondary, tertiary, and quaternary structure of T-cell-specific immunoglobulin-like polypeptide chains. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1986 Feb;83(3):742–746. doi: 10.1073/pnas.83.3.742. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  19. Pannetier C., Cochet M., Darche S., Kourilsky P. Une méthode de dosage quantitatif d'acides nucléiques par amplification enzymatique (méthode PCR) à saturation. C R Acad Sci III. 1992;315(7):271–277. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  20. Pannetier C., Delassus S., Darche S., Saucier C., Kourilsky P. Quantitative titration of nucleic acids by enzymatic amplification reactions run to saturation. Nucleic Acids Res. 1993 Feb 11;21(3):577–583. doi: 10.1093/nar/21.3.577. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  21. Six A., Jouvin-Marche E., Loh D. Y., Cazenave P. A., Marche P. N. Identification of a T cell receptor beta chain variable region, V beta 20, that is differentially expressed in various strains of mice. J Exp Med. 1991 Nov 1;174(5):1263–1266. doi: 10.1084/jem.174.5.1263. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  22. Wilson R. K., Lai E., Concannon P., Barth R. K., Hood L. E. Structure, organization and polymorphism of murine and human T-cell receptor alpha and beta chain gene families. Immunol Rev. 1988 Jan;101:149–172. doi: 10.1111/j.1600-065x.1988.tb00736.x. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]

Articles from Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America are provided here courtesy of National Academy of Sciences

RESOURCES