title: The bovine antibody repertoire.
abstract: Cattle are able to produce a full range of Ig classes including the long-elusive IgD through rearrangement of their germline genes. Several IgL groupings have been reported but as in several other livestock species (e.g. sheep, rabbits, chickens), rearrangement per se fails to generate significant IgH diversity. This is largely because of the modest number of bovine VH segments that participate in rearrangement and their conserved sequences. Perhaps in compensation, bovine Ig heavy chains carry CDR3 sequences of exceptional length. Processes that operate post-rearrangement to generate diversity remain ill defined as are the location, timing and triggers to these events. Reagents are needed to understand better the maturation of B lymphocytes, their responses to antigens and cytokines, and to provide standards for the quantitation of Ig responses in cattle; recombinant methods may help meet this need as Ab engineering technologies become more widely used.
authors.affiliation: Division of Clinical Immunology, Department of Laboratory Medicine, Karolinska University Hospital at Huddinge, SE-14186 Stockholm, Sweden.
authors.forename: Yaofeng
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.forename: Stephen M
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Jackson
authors.forename: Robert
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Aitken
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D001402:B-Lymphocytes / Q000276:immunology / Q000378:metabolism; D001483:Base Sequence; D002417:Cattle / Q000235:genetics / Q000276:immunology*; D015321:Gene Rearrangement; D007136:Immunoglobulins / Q000096:biosynthesis* / Q000097:blood / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics*; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data
chemical_list: D007136:Immunoglobulins