Diversity of functional T-cell receptor delta-chain transcripts from bone marrow cells of athymic nude mice.
CD3+ cells are detectable in bone marrow of athymic mice homozygous for the nude mutation. As previously shown, cells expressing the gamma delta T-cell receptor (TcR) represent 30-40% of this T-cell population. Using V delta-specific, V alpha 4-specific, and C delta-specific primers, TcR delta-chain transcripts were reverse transcribed and polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-amplified from total RNA prepared from bone marrow cells (BMC) of 6-month-old NMRI nu/nu mice. Amplified TcR delta-chain cDNA was cloned, and 49 randomly selected clones derived from seven amplification reactions were sequenced. Sequence analyses showed: (1) more than 80% of the sequenced clones represented in-frame transcripts of the TcR delta-chain; (2) in-frame transcripts containing V delta 1-, V delta 2-, V delta 3-, V delta 4-, V delta 5-, V delta 6- and V alpha 4-gene segments were detectable in nude BMC; (3) V delta 2-, V delta 4- and V delta 5-containing transcripts were more abundant and more diverse than V delta 1- and V delta 3-containing transcripts; (4) extensive N-region diversity was present in the V delta-D delta 2 (N1), D delta 2-D delta 1 (N2) and D delta 1-J delta 1 (N3) junctional regions; (5) P nucleotide additions were present in many transcripts; and (6) unusual truncated, in-frame transcripts with deleted D- and J-region genes were detected. A large potential TcR delta-chain repertoire is thus present in nude BMC.
Spiess
S
S
Institute of Microbiology, University of Ulm, Germany.
Kuhröber
A
A
Schirmbeck
R
R
Arden
B
B
Reimann
J
J
D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D001483:Base Sequence; D001853:Bone Marrow / Q000276:immunology*; D004247:DNA / Q000737:chemistry; D005260:Female; D051379:Mice; D008819:Mice, Nude; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction; D016692:Receptors, Antigen, T-Cell, gamma-delta / Q000235:genetics*
D016692:Receptors, Antigen, T-Cell, gamma-delta; D004247:DNA