title: Diversity and function of adaptive immune receptors in a jawless vertebrate.
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Department of Medicine, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL 35294, USA.
authors.forename: Matthew N
authors.initials: MN
authors.lastname: Alder
authors.forename: Igor B
authors.initials: IB
authors.lastname: Rogozin
authors.forename: Lakshminarayan M
authors.initials: LM
authors.lastname: Iyer
authors.forename: Galina V
authors.initials: GV
authors.lastname: Glazko
authors.forename: Max D
authors.initials: MD
authors.lastname: Cooper
authors.forename: Zeev
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Pancer
mesh_terms: 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
chemical_list: D011971:Receptors, Immunologic