Lafaille J J, DeCloux A, Bonneville M, Takagaki Y, Tonegawa S
Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Center for Cancer Research, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139.
Cell. 1989 Dec 1;59(5):859-70. doi: 10.1016/0092-8674(89)90609-0.
Nucleotide sequences of a large number of V-(D)-J junctions of T cell receptor (TCR) gamma and delta genes show that most fetal thymocytes express on their surface one of just two gamma delta TCRs known to be expressed by epidermal gamma delta T cells (s-IEL) or intraepithelial gamma delta T cells associated with female reproductive organs (r-IEL). In contrast, gamma delta TCRs expressed on adult thymocytes are highly diverse as a result of multiple combinations of gene segments as well as junctional deletions and insertions, indicating that developmental time-and cell lineage-dependent mechanisms exist that control the extent of gamma delta TCR diversity. In addition, this study revealed a new type of junctional insertion (P nucleotides), which led to a new model of V-(D)-J joining generally applicable to immunoglobulin and TCR genes.
大量T细胞受体（TCR）γ和δ基因的V-（D）-J连接的核苷酸序列表明，大多数胎儿胸腺细胞在其表面表达已知由表皮γδT细胞（s-IEL）或与女性生殖器官相关的上皮内γδT细胞（r-IEL）表达的仅两种γδTCR之一。相比之下，由于基因片段的多种组合以及连接缺失和插入，成年胸腺细胞上表达的γδTCR高度多样化，这表明存在发育时间和细胞谱系依赖性机制来控制γδTCR多样性的程度。此外，这项研究揭示了一种新型的连接插入（P核苷酸），这导致了一种普遍适用于免疫球蛋白和TCR基因的V-（D）-J连接新模式。
