title: Analysis of human VH gene repertoire expression in peripheral CD19+ B cells.
abstract: Using CD19 B-cell selection and polymerase chain reaction-amplified cDNA libraries, we analyzed the peripheral immunoglobulin heavy chain variable repertoire of three healthy adult donors. Here we report that most of the CD19+ circulating B cells expressed unmutated VH-D-JH rearrangements. By specific VH family hybridization, we show that VH gene family utilization in the periphery roughly corresponds to the complexity of these families in the germline and appears to be relatively constant among the analyzed subjects. However, sequence data of clones picked at random from one IgM cDNA library reveals that in spite of this "random" utilization, the VH gene expression in naive circulating B cells is highly biased towards the expression of a limited set of VH genes. As previously reported by others, this restricted mechanism is also found for the D and JH segments.
authors.affiliation: Immunogénétique cellulaire, Institut Pasteur, 25 rue du Dr Roux, 75015 Paris, France.
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Demaison
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: David
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Letourneur
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Thèze
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Saragosti
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Zouali
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D018941:Antigens, CD19 / Q000032:analysis; D016175:B-Lymphocyte Subsets / Q000276:immunology*; D001483:Base Sequence; D017931:DNA Primers / Q000737:chemistry; D005260:Female; D015870:Gene Expression; D015326:Gene Rearrangement, B-Lymphocyte, Heavy Chain; D005803:Genes, Immunoglobulin; D006801:Humans; D007135:Immunoglobulin Variable Region / Q000235:genetics*; D008297:Male; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D012333:RNA, Messenger / Q000235:genetics; D016415:Sequence Alignment; D012689:Sequence Homology, Nucleic Acid
chemical_list: D018941:Antigens, CD19; D017931:DNA Primers; D007135:Immunoglobulin Variable Region; D012333:RNA, Messenger