Structure, diversity, and repertoire of VH families in the Mexican axolotl.

The Mexican axolotl V(H) segments associated with the Igh C mu and C nu isotypes were isolated from anchored PCR libraries prepared from spleen cell cDNA. The eight new V(H) segments found bring the number of V(H) families in the axolotl to 11. Each V(H) had the canonical structural features of vertebrate V(H) segments, including residues important for the correct folding of the Ig domain. The distribution of ser AGC/T (AGY) and TCN codons in axolotl V(H) genes was biased toward AGY in complementarity-determining region-1 (CDR1) and TCN in framework region-1 (FR1); there were no ser residues in the FR2 region. Thus, the axolotl CDR1 region is enriched in DNA sequences forming potential hypermutation hot spots and is flanked by DNA sequences more resistant to point mutation. There was no significant bias toward AGY in CDR2. Southern blotting using family-specific V(H) probes showed restriction fragments from 1 (V(H)9) to 11-19 (V(H)2), and the total number of V(H) genes was 44 to 70, depending on the restriction endonuclease used. The V(H) segments were not randomly used by the H mu and H nu chains; V(H)1, V(H)6, and V(H)11 were underutilized; and the majority of the V(H) segments belonged to the V(H)7, V(H)8, and V(H)9 families. Most of the nine J(H) segments seemed to be randomly used, except J(H)6 and J(H)9, which were found only once in 79 clones.