Palindromic nucleotide analysis in human T cell receptor rearrangements.

ABSTRACT: Diversity of T cell receptor (TCR) genes is primarily generated by nucleotide insertions upon rearrangement from their germ line-encoded V, D and J segments. Nucleotide insertions at V-D and D-J junctions are random, but some small subsets of these insertions are exceptional, in that one to three base pairs inversely repeat the sequence of the germline DNA. These short complementary palindromic sequences are called P nucleotides. We apply the ImmunoSeq deep-sequencing assay to the third complementarity determining region (CDR3) of the β chain of T cell receptors, and use the resulting data to study P nucleotides in the repertoire of naïve and memory CD8(+) and CD4(+) T cells. We estimate P nucleotide distributions in a cross section of healthy adults and different T cell subtypes. We show

SUBMITTER: Srivastava SK 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3528771 | biostudies-literature | 2012

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature