High-throughput antibody sequencing reveals genetic evidence of global regulation of the naïve and memory repertoires that extends across individuals.

Briney, B S; Willis, J R; McKinney, B A; Crowe, J E

Vast diversity in the antibody repertoire is a key component of the adaptive immune response. This diversity is generated centrally through the assembly of variable, diversity and joining gene segments, and peripherally by somatic hypermutation and class-switch recombination. The peripheral diversification process is thought to only occur in response to antigenic stimulus, producing antigen-selected memory B cells. Surprisingly, analyses of the variable, diversity and joining gene segments have revealed that the naïve and memory subsets are composed of similar proportions of these elements. Lacking, however, is a more detailed study, analyzing the repertoires of naïve and memory subsets at the level of the complete V(D)J recombinant. This report presents a thorough examination of V(D)J recombinants in the human peripheral blood repertoire, revealing surprisingly large repertoire differences between circulating B-cell subsets and providing genetic evidence for global control of repertoire diversity in naïve and memory circulating B-cell subsets.

GENETIC regulation; MEMORY; NUCLEOTIDE sequence; RECOMBINANT DNA; B cells; BIODIVERSITY

Genes & Immunity, 2012, Vol 13, Issue 6, p469

1466-4879

Academic Journal

10.1038/gene.2012.20