Amemiya Chris T, Saha Nil Ratan, Zapata Agustin
Molecular Genetics Program, Benaroya Research Institute at Virginia Mason, 1201 Ninth Avenue, Seattle, WA 98101, United States.
Curr Opin Immunol. 2007 Oct;19(5):535-41. doi: 10.1016/j.coi.2007.08.003. Epub 2007 Sep 17.
Comparative immunology has been revitalized by the integration of genomics approaches, which allow a foothold into addressing problems that previously had been difficult to study. One such problem had been the enigmatic finding of overt immune anatomical structures in the lamprey, yet its apparent lack of bona fide immunoglobulin or T cell receptor molecules. The genomic characterization of a novel extended locus that undergoes rearrangements to generate receptor diversity and the subsequent implementation of this diversity in the immune system of lampreys have generated considerable interest as well as new avenues for investigation. Here, we review the anatomical structures of the lamprey that exhibit lympho-hematopoietic characteristics, with the ultimate goal of reconciling these data with contemporary molecular findings. By integrating these datasets we seek to better understand how an alternative adaptive immune system could have evolved.
基因组学方法的整合使比较免疫学得以复兴，这为解决以前难以研究的问题提供了契机。七鳃鳗中明显的免疫解剖结构就是这样一个问题，然而它显然缺乏真正的免疫球蛋白或T细胞受体分子。一个新的扩展基因座的基因组特征，该基因座发生重排以产生受体多样性，并随后在七鳃鳗的免疫系统中实现这种多样性，这引起了相当大的兴趣以及新的研究途径。在这里，我们回顾了七鳃鳗具有淋巴造血特征的解剖结构，最终目标是将这些数据与当代分子研究结果相协调。通过整合这些数据集，我们试图更好地理解替代适应性免疫系统是如何进化的。
