Immunoglobulin Light Chain Gene Rearrangements, Receptor Editing and the Development of a Self-Tolerant Antibody Repertoire.

ABSTRACT: Discussion of the antibody repertoire usually emphasizes diversity, but a conspicuous feature of the light chain repertoire is its lack of diversity. The diversity of reported allelic variants of germline light chain genes is also limited, even in well-studied species. In this review, the implications of this lack of diversity are considered. We explore germline and rearranged light chain genes in a variety of species, with a particular focus on human and mouse genes. The importance of the number, organization and orientation of the genes for the control of repertoire development is discussed, and we consider how primary rearrangements and receptor editing together shape the expressed light chain repertoire. The resulting repertoire is dominated by just a handful of IGKV and IGLV genes. It

SUBMITTER: Collins AM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6186787 | biostudies-literature | 2018

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature