MICR 3230 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Immunoglobulin Light Chain, Intron, V(D)J Recombination

• School: University of Guelph
• Department: Microbiology
• Course: MICR 3230
• Professor: Kaushik/ Mallard

Document Summary

Rapidly evolving: present different antibodies as time progresses. The organization and expression of b-lymphocyte receptor genes. The immune system must recognize a vast array of rapidly evolving microorganisms. To accomplish this, it must generate a diverse and flexible repertoire of antibodies. The heavy-chain, kappa, and lambda genes are encoded on separate chromosomes. Kappa light-chain genes include v (responsible for encoding the variable region of the light chain), j, and c (constant segments) of 5 . Coding segments (exons) are separated by non-coding gaps (introns) of 5 100 kb. Downstream of v genes are the four functional j segments. Humans have a similar arrangement, (but different numbers of v and j genes) Jk segments encode for the variable region of the short chain. Lambda light chain genes include v, j, and c segments. Each j segment is paired with a particular c segment. I(cid:374) mi(cid:272)e the(cid:396)e a(cid:396)e usuall(cid:455) th(cid:396)ee fu(cid:374)(cid:272)tio(cid:374)al v ge(cid:374)es. I(cid:374) hu(cid:373)a(cid:374)s a(cid:271)out (cid:1007)(cid:1004) v ge(cid:374)es a(cid:396)e used.