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Extraction and characterization of the rhesus macaque T‐cell receptor β‐chain genes
Author(s) -
Greenaway Hui Yee,
Kurniawan Monica,
Price David A,
Douek Daniel C,
Davenport Miles P,
Venturi Vanessa
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
immunology and cell biology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.999
H-Index - 104
eISSN - 1440-1711
pISSN - 0818-9641
DOI - 10.1038/icb.2009.38
Subject(s) - rhesus macaque , macaque , biology , t cell receptor , gene , genetics , epitope , genome , homologous chromosome , immune system , computational biology , t cell , antigen , paleontology
Rhesus macaque models have been instrumental in the development and testing of vaccines before human studies and have provided fundamental insights into the determinants of immune efficacy in a variety of infectious diseases. However, the characterization of antigen‐specific T‐cell receptor (TCR) repertoires during adaptive immune responses in these models has earlier relied on human TCR gene assignments. Here, we extracted and characterized TCR β‐chain (TRB) genes from the recently sequenced rhesus macaque genome that are homologous to the human TRB genes. Comparison of the rhesus macaque TRB genes with the human TRB genes showed an average best match similarity of 92.9%. Furthermore, we confirmed the usage of most rhesus macaque TRB genes by expressed TCRβ sequences within epitope‐specific TCR repertoires. This primary description of the rhesus macaque TRB genes will provide a standardized nomenclature and enable better characterization of TCR usage in studies that use this species.