TY - JOUR
T1 - Initiation of V(D)J recombination in zebrafish (Danio rerio) ovaries
AU - Zhong, Hanbing
AU - Li, Zhi
AU - Lin, Shuo
AU - Chang, Yung
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank Dr. J. Wilson-Rawls and Dr. D. Chandler for their advice in preparing single cell suspension from ovary. We thank S. Kumar and M. Gellert, as well as members of Chang's laboratory for critical reading of the manuscript. This work was partially supported by NCI (CA073857 to Y.C.) and NIH (DK054508 to S. L.). H.Z. is supported in part by funding from NSFC (90408029).
PY - 2007/3
Y1 - 2007/3
N2 - The assembly of mammalian antigen receptor genes is a lymphoid-specific process. However, rearranged immunoglobulin genes can also be recovered from non-lymphoid tissues of cartilaginous fish. This event, known as germline rearrangement, has been speculated to arise from recombination-activating gene (RAG)-mediated recombination in germ cells. In this report, we demonstrate that zebrafish (Danio rerio) oocytes expressing high levels of RAG-RNA can readily initiate recombination cleavage at immunoglobulin gene loci, providing direct evidence for an ongoing process of attempted germline rearrangement in zebrafish ovaries. This attempted rearrangement is largely unproductive, yielding no accumulation of germline-joined immunoglobulin genes in zebrafish, which is consistent with their general absence in this species. Our data, therefore, substantiate the speculation that RAG might have been derived from a transposase, invading germ cells of ancient species, and later become a dedicated recombinase only expressed in developing lymphocytes.
AB - The assembly of mammalian antigen receptor genes is a lymphoid-specific process. However, rearranged immunoglobulin genes can also be recovered from non-lymphoid tissues of cartilaginous fish. This event, known as germline rearrangement, has been speculated to arise from recombination-activating gene (RAG)-mediated recombination in germ cells. In this report, we demonstrate that zebrafish (Danio rerio) oocytes expressing high levels of RAG-RNA can readily initiate recombination cleavage at immunoglobulin gene loci, providing direct evidence for an ongoing process of attempted germline rearrangement in zebrafish ovaries. This attempted rearrangement is largely unproductive, yielding no accumulation of germline-joined immunoglobulin genes in zebrafish, which is consistent with their general absence in this species. Our data, therefore, substantiate the speculation that RAG might have been derived from a transposase, invading germ cells of ancient species, and later become a dedicated recombinase only expressed in developing lymphocytes.
KW - And V(D)J recombination
KW - Germline gene rearrangement
KW - Ligation-mediated PCR
KW - Non-homologous end joining
KW - Recombination ends
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U2 - 10.1016/j.molimm.2006.08.012
DO - 10.1016/j.molimm.2006.08.012
M3 - Article
C2 - 16996591
AN - SCOPUS:33751333240
SN - 0161-5890
VL - 44
SP - 1784
EP - 1792
JO - Molecular Immunology
JF - Molecular Immunology
IS - 7
ER -