title: The Florida manatee (Trichechus manatus latirostris) immunoglobulin heavy chain suggests the importance of clan III variable segments in repertoire diversity.
abstract: Manatees are a vulnerable, charismatic sentinel species from the evolutionarily divergent Afrotheria. Manatee health and resistance to infectious disease is of great concern to conservation groups, but little is known about their immune system. To develop manatee-specific tools for monitoring health, we first must have a general knowledge of how the immunoglobulin heavy (IgH) chain locus is organized and transcriptionally expressed. Using the genomic scaffolds of the Florida manatee (Trichechus manatus latirostris), we characterized the potential IgH segmental diversity and constant region isotypic diversity and performed the first Afrotherian repertoire analysis. The Florida manatee has low V(D)J combinatorial diversity (3744 potential combinations) and few constant region isotypes. They also lack clan III V segments, which may have caused reduced VH segment numbers. However, we found productive somatic hypermutation concentrated in the complementarity determining regions. In conclusion, manatees have limited IGHV clan and combinatorial diversity. This suggests that clan III V segments are essential for maintaining IgH locus diversity.
authors.affiliation: Comparative Immunogenetics Laboratory, Department of Veterinary Pathobiology, College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, USA. Electronic address: bbreaux@cvm.tamu.edu.
authors.forename: Breanna
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Breaux
authors.affiliation: Comparative Immunogenetics Laboratory, Department of Veterinary Pathobiology, College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, USA. Electronic address: tdeiss@cvm.tamu.edu.
authors.forename: Thaddeus C
authors.initials: TC
authors.lastname: Deiss
authors.affiliation: Comparative Immunogenetics Laboratory, Department of Veterinary Pathobiology, College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, USA. Electronic address: pchen@cvm.tamu.edu.
authors.forename: Patricia L
authors.initials: PL
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of DNA Polymorphism, Federal University of Pará, Belém, Pará, Brazil. Electronic address: paula@ufpa.br.
authors.forename: Maria Paula
authors.initials: MP
authors.lastname: Cruz-Schneider
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Medical and Human Genetics, Federal University of Pará, Belém, Pará, Brazil. Electronic address: lsena@ufpa.br.
authors.forename: Leonardo
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Sena
authors.affiliation: Wetland and Aquatic Research Center, U.S. Geological Survey, 7920 NW 71st Street, Gainesville, FL 32653, USA. Electronic address: mhunter@usgs.gov.
authors.forename: Margaret E
authors.initials: ME
authors.lastname: Hunter
authors.affiliation: Wetland and Aquatic Research Center, U.S. Geological Survey, 7920 NW 71st Street, Gainesville, FL 32653, USA. Electronic address: rbonde@usgs.gov.
authors.forename: Robert K
authors.initials: RK
authors.lastname: Bonde
authors.affiliation: Comparative Immunogenetics Laboratory, Department of Veterinary Pathobiology, College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, USA; Department of Microbial Pathogenesis and Immunology, College of Medicine, Texas A&M Health Science Center, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, USA. Electronic address: mcriscitiello@cvm.tamu.edu.
authors.forename: Michael F
authors.initials: MF
authors.lastname: Criscitiello
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D000916:Antibody Diversity; D005075:Biological Evolution; D022801:Complementarity Determining Regions / Q000235:genetics*; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D056724:Immunity, Humoral / Q000235:genetics; D007143:Immunoglobulin Heavy Chains / Q000235:genetics*; D008322:Mammals; D027041:Somatic Hypermutation, Immunoglobulin; D020457:Trichechus manatus / Q000276:immunology*
chemical_list: D022801:Complementarity Determining Regions; D007143:Immunoglobulin Heavy Chains
keywords: Clan; Genomic; Immunoglobulin; Manatee; Mutation