Open AccessCharacterization of a complete immunoglobulin heavy-chain variable region germ-line gene of rainbow trout.
Author(s) -
Takeshi Matsunaga,
Thomas Chen,
Vuokko Törmänen
Publication year - 1990
Publication title -
proceedings of the national academy of sciences of the united states of america
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 5.011
H-Index - 771
eISSN - 1091-6490
pISSN - 0027-8424
DOI - 10.1073/pnas.87.19.7767
Subject(s) - biology , salmo , rainbow trout , homology (biology) , genetics , gene , peptide sequence , trout , nucleic acid sequence , coding region , amino acid , microbiology and biotechnology , fishery , fish <actinopterygii>
A germ-line heavy-chain variable region (VH) gene (RTVH431) has been isolated from a rainbow trout (Salmo gairdneri) and characterized by complete nucleotide sequencing. It is characteristic of VH, as shown by the conserved octamer and TATA motif in the 5' region, the heptamernonamer recombination signal sequence in the 3' region, and the 18-amino-acid-long hydrophobic leader interrupted by an intron. The 98-amino-acid-long VH coding region has 50-70% nucleotide sequence homology and 40-60% amino acid sequence homology with VHS of various vertebrate species. We have also found unique or species-specific amino acid residues in the VHS of rainbow trout, amphibia (Xenopus), reptile (Caiman), and shark (Heterodontus) in our sequence analyses. The RTVH431 has an unusual amino acid in the conserved 34th position in complementarity-determining region 1 of VH. Southern hybridization results suggest the presence of a large gene family related to RTVH431 in the trout genome. The complex evolution of antibody V genes is discussed.