International Immunology, Vol. 12, No. 7, 959-968,
July 2000
© 2000 Japanese Society for Immunology
Class switch recombination of the chicken IgH chain genes: implications for the primordial switch region repeats
1 Department of Biophysics, Graduate School of Science, Kyoto University, Kyoto 606-8502, Japan
2 Center for Molecular Biology and Genetics, Kyoto University, Kyoto 606-8507, Japan
3 Radiation Biology Center, Kyoto University, Kyoto 606-8501, Japan
4 Health Research Foundation, Kyoto 606-8225, Japan
5 Department of Immunobiology, Faculty of Applied Biological Science, Hiroshima University, Hiroshima 739-8528, Japan
6 Department of Anatomy, Kumamoto University Medical School, Kumamoto 860-0811, Japan
Correspondence to: A. Shimizu
In mammals and the amphibian, Xenopus, isotypes of antibodies have been shown to be changed through class switch recombination within the IgH chain gene locus. Here, we identified switch (S) repetitive sequences in the 5' introns of the Ig Cµ and C
genes of the chicken. The Sµ region is composed of two homologous regions, Sµ1 and Sµ2. The Sµ1 region is an upstream 3.7 kb sequence composed of 37 repeats of a consensus sequence containing tandem repeats of the decamer ACCAGTATGG. The Sµ2 region is a downstream 1.4 kb sequence consisting of simple tandem repeats of a decamer CCCAGTACAG. The S region contains repeats of the decamer TATGGGGCAG. Analysis of chicken IgG-producing hybridomas revealed that the Cµ gene was deleted from the chromosome by the recombination occurring between the Sµ and S regions. Recombination breakpoints at the Cµ gene of splenocytes from an immunized chicken were scattered around the Sµ region and two such breakpoints, the precise position of which were determined, were located within possible hairpin loop structures at the palindromic sequence of Sµ1. A primordial palindromic sequence from which the prevalent switch repeat motifs of mammals, chickens and amphibians may have diverged is presented.
Keywords: chicken switch region, deletional recombination, palindrome, prevalent pentamer, repetitive sequence
7 Present address: Department of Cellular Immunology, Heinrich-Pette-Institute, 20251 Hamburg, Germany
Transmitting editor: D. Kitamura
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