title: Striking antigen recognition diversity in the Atlantic salmon T-cell receptor alpha/delta locus.
abstract: The complete TCR alpha/delta locus of Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) has been characterized and annotated. In the 900 kb TCR alpha/delta locus, 292 Valpha/delta segments and 123 Jalpha/delta segments were identified. Of these, 128 Valpha/delta, 113 Jalpha, and a Jdelta segment appeared to be functional as they lacked frame shifts or stop codons. This represents the largest repertoire of Valpha/delta and Jalpha segments of any organism to date. The 128 functional Valpha/delta segments could be grouped into 29 subgroups based upon 70% nucleotide similarity. Expression data confirmed the usage of the diverse repertoire found at the genomic level. At least 99 Valpha, 13 Vdelta 86 Jalpha, 1 Jdelta, and 2 Ddelta segments were used in TCR alpha or delta transcription, and 652 unique genes were identified from a sample of 759 TCRalpha cDNA clones. Cumulatively, the genomic and expression data suggest that the Atlantic salmon T-cell receptor has enormous capacity to recognize a wide diversity of antigens.
authors.affiliation: Centre for Biomedical Research, University of Victoria, PO Box 3020 STN CSC, Victoria, BC, Canada V8W 3N5.
authors.forename: Ryosuke
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Yazawa
authors.forename: Glenn A
authors.initials: GA
authors.lastname: Cooper
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Hunt
authors.forename: Marianne
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Beetz-Sargent
authors.forename: Adrienne
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Robb
authors.forename: Melanie
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Conrad
authors.forename: Linda
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: McKinnel
authors.forename: Stacy
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: So
authors.forename: Stuart
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Jantzen
authors.forename: Ruth B
authors.initials: RB
authors.lastname: Phillips
authors.forename: William S
authors.initials: WS
authors.lastname: Davidson
authors.forename: Ben F
authors.initials: BF
authors.lastname: Koop
mesh_terms: D000483:Alleles; D000818:Animals; D001483:Base Sequence; D022801:Complementarity Determining Regions / Q000235:genetics; D018076:DNA, Complementary / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling; D015723:Gene Library; D023061:Gene Order; D019673:Genes, T-Cell Receptor alpha / Q000235:genetics*; D019674:Genes, T-Cell Receptor beta / Q000235:genetics; D019676:Genes, T-Cell Receptor delta / Q000235:genetics*; D019675:Genes, T-Cell Receptor gamma / Q000235:genetics; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D020133:Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction; D020317:Salmo salar / Q000235:genetics* / Q000276:immunology; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA; D012689:Sequence Homology, Nucleic Acid
chemical_list: D022801:Complementarity Determining Regions; D018076:DNA, Complementary