Might gene conversion be the mechanism of somatic hypermutation of mammalian immunoglobulin genes?
Gene conversion has played a major role in molding eukaryotic genomes, and this same mechanism mediates targeted sequence diversification of a variety of genes in response to developmental or environmental stimuli. Here I review data indicating that gene conversion may also be the molecular mechanism of somatic hypermutation at the mammalian immunoglobulin loci.
Maizels
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D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D001483:Base Sequence; D005785:Gene Conversion; D005803:Genes, Immunoglobulin; D008322:Mammals / Q000276:immunology*; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D009154:Mutation