Sims J E, Tunnacliffe A, Smith W J, Rabbitts T H
Nature. 1984;312(5994):541-5. doi: 10.1038/312541a0.
Immune systems of vertebrates function via two types of effector cells, B and T cells, which are capable of antigen-specific recognition. The immunoglobulins, which serve as antigen receptors on B cells, have been well characterized with respect to gene structure, unlike the T-cell receptors. Recently, cDNA clones thought to correspond to the beta-chain locus of the human and mouse T-cell receptor have been described. The presumptive beta-chain clones detect gene rearrangement specifically in T-cell DNA and show homology with immunoglobulin light chains. The similarity of the T-cell beta-chain gene system to the immunoglobulin genes has been further demonstrated by the recent observation of variable- and constant-region gene segments as well as joining segments and putative diversity segments. We report here the characterization of cDNA and genomic clones encoding human T-cell receptor beta-chain genes. There are two constant-region genes (C beta 1 and C beta 2), each capable of rearrangement and expression as RNA. The gene arrangement, analogous to that of mouse beta-chain genes, shows strong evolutionary conservation of the dual C beta gene system in these two species.
脊椎动物的免疫系统通过两种效应细胞（B细胞和T细胞）发挥作用，这两种细胞能够进行抗原特异性识别。免疫球蛋白作为B细胞上的抗原受体，其基因结构已得到充分表征，这与T细胞受体不同。最近，已描述了被认为对应于人及小鼠T细胞受体β链基因座的cDNA克隆。推测的β链克隆能特异性检测T细胞DNA中的基因重排，并与免疫球蛋白轻链显示出同源性。最近对可变区和恒定区基因片段以及连接片段和假定的多样性片段的观察，进一步证明了T细胞β链基因系统与免疫球蛋白基因的相似性。我们在此报告编码人T细胞受体β链基因的cDNA和基因组克隆的表征。有两个恒定区基因（Cβ1和Cβ2），每个基因都能够重排并作为RNA表达。这种基因排列类似于小鼠β链基因，显示出这两个物种中双Cβ基因系统在进化上的强烈保守性。
