Diversity and function of adaptive immune receptors in a jawless vertebrate.
Instead of the immunoglobulin-type antigen receptors of jawed vertebrates, jawless fish have variable lymphocyte receptors (VLRs), which consist of leucine-rich repeat (LRR) modules. Somatic diversification of the VLR gene is shown here to occur through a multistep assembly of LRR modules randomly selected from a large bank of flanking cassettes. The predicted concave surface of the VLR is lined with hypervariable positively selected residues, and computational analysis suggests a repertoire of about 10(14) unique receptors. Lamprey immunized with anthrax spores responded with the production of soluble antigen-specific VLRs. These findings reveal that two strikingly different modes of antigen recognition through rearranged lymphocyte receptors have evolved in the jawless and jawed vertebrates.
Alder
Matthew N
MN
Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Department of Medicine, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL 35294, USA.
Rogozin
Igor B
IB
Iyer
Lakshminarayan M
LM
Glazko
Galina V
GV
Cooper
Max D
MD
Pancer
Zeev
Z
D000220:Adaptation, Biological; D000818:Animals; D001408:Bacillus anthracis / Q000276:immunology; D001412:Bacillus subtilis / Q000276:immunology; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D015321:Gene Rearrangement; D014644:Genetic Variation; D007109:Immunity / Q000235:genetics* / Q000502:physiology; D007798:Lampreys / Q000235:genetics / Q000276:immunology*; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D011971:Receptors, Immunologic / Q000235:genetics* / Q000276:immunology; D012641:Selection, Genetic; D013171:Spores, Bacterial / Q000276:immunology
D011971:Receptors, Immunologic