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Surrogate Light Chain in B Cell Development

1996; Elsevier BV; Linguagem: Inglês

10.1016/s0065-2776(08)60853-6

1557-8445

Hajime Karasuyama, Antonius Rolink, Fritz Melchers,

Immune Cell Function and Interaction

This chapter explains that B and T cells in mouse and human use the stepwise rearrangement procedure during their differentiation to select productively VDJ-rearranged precursor cells over those with nonproductively rearranged loci. The productively rearranged, immunoglobulin (Ig) heavy chain and T cell receptor (TCR)β chain-expressing cells shut off rearrangements at the Ig heavy chain and TCRβ chain loci to secure allelic exclusion of the second allele, before they start rearrangements at the Ig light chain and TCRα chain loci, respectively. The expression of surrogate light chain has been examined extensively in in-vitro transformed B-lineage cell lines, as well as in normal precursor B cells in the bone marrow of mice. The pattern of the expression observed in transformed cell lines representing various stages of B cell development was turned out to be different from that in normal counterparts. The surrogate light chain can be brought to the cell surface in association with different partners in different transformed cells representing different stages along B cell development. This pattern of expression is derived from the analyses of surrogate light chain in transformed cell lines and differs from that observed in normal B-lineage cells of mouse fetal liver and bone marrow. The chapter makes considerable progress in understanding why μ heavy chain has to be produced prior to light chain during B cell differentiation and what molecules are associated with μ heavy chain at the early stage of B cell development. The analysis of molecules involved in the signal transduction may identify novel genes responsible for primary immunodeficiencies.