Characterization of the ferret TRB locus guided by V, D, J, and C gene expression analysis

Publication date

2020-02

Authors

Gerritsen, Bram
Pandit, Aridaman
Zaaraoui-Boutahar, Fatiha
van den Hout, Mirjam C G N
van IJcken, Wilfred F J
de Boer, Rob J
Andeweg, Arno C

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Document Type

Article

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Abstract

The domestic ferret, Mustela putorius furo, is an important mammalian animal model to study human respiratory infection. However, insufficient genomic annotation hampers detailed studies of ferret T cell responses. In this study, we analyzed the published T cell receptor beta (TRB) locus and performed high-throughput sequencing (HTS) of peripheral blood of four healthy adult ferrets to identify expressed V, D, J, and C genes. The HTS data is used as a guide to manually curate the expressed V, D, J, and C genes. The ferret locus appears to be most similar to that of the dog. Like other mammalian TRB loci, the ferret TRB locus contains a library of variable genes located upstream of two D-J-C gene clusters, followed by a (in the ferret non-functional) V gene with an inverted transcriptional orientation. All TRB genes (expressed or not) reported here have been approved by the IMGT/WHO-IUIS nomenclature committee.

Keywords

Animals, Ferrets, Gene Expression Regulation, Gene Rearrangement, beta-Chain T-Cell Antigen Receptor/genetics, High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing, Receptors, Antigen, T-Cell, alpha-beta/genetics, IMGT, T cell receptor, TRB locus, Immune repertoire sequencing, Comparative genomics, Ferret (Mustela putorius furo), Genetics, Immunology, Review, Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't, Journal Article

Citation

Gerritsen, B, Pandit, A, Zaaraoui-Boutahar, F, van den Hout, M C G N, van IJcken, W F J, de Boer, R J & Andeweg, A C 2020, 'Characterization of the ferret TRB locus guided by V, D, J, and C gene expression analysis', Immunogenetics, vol. 72, no. 1-2, pp. 101-108. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00251-019-01142-9