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Variable domains in hagfish: NICIR is a polymorphic multigene family expressed preferentially in leukocytes and is related to lamprey TCR-like

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Abstract

The jawless vertebrates, represented by hagfish and lampreys, are the most advanced animals that apparently lack T cell and B cell receptors. As such, they offer unique opportunities for understanding the evolution of antigen receptors and variable (V)-type immunoglobulin (Ig)-like domains. In the present study, we describe four hagfish Ig superfamily (IgSF) members carrying V-type domains. None of them appeared to have direct counterparts in jawed vertebrates, indicating that many IgSF molecules have either evolved independently in jawed and jawless vertebrates or diverged to the extent that clear homology is no longer recognizable. One of the members encoded a molecule closely related to the previously described membrane protein designated novel ITAM (immunoreceptor tyrosine-based activation motif)-containing IgSF receptors (NICIR). We show here that NICIR is a polymorphic multigene family with at least three members and is expressed predominantly in peripheral blood leukocytes. Phylogenetic analysis indicates that among known proteins, NICIR is most closely related to the lamprey molecule recently proposed to be a potential ancestor of T cell receptors.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Dr. Morisawa, The University of Tokyo and Ms. Kayano, Sekikatsu for supplying us hagfish. This work was supported by Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research from The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Pathology, Division of Pathophysiological Science, Hokkaido University Graduate School of Medicine, North-15 West-7, Sapporo, 060-8638, Japan

    Chiaki Haruta & Masanori Kasahara

  2. Department of Biosystems Science, School of Advanced Sciences, The Graduate University for Advanced Studies (Sokendai), Hayama, 240-0193, Japan

    Chiaki Haruta & Takashi Suzuki

  3. Japan Fisheries Resource Conservation Association, Tokyo, 104-0054, Japan

    Takashi Suzuki

Authors
  1. Chiaki Haruta
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  2. Takashi Suzuki
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  3. Masanori Kasahara
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Masanori Kasahara.

Additional information

Sequence data reported in this paper were submitted to the DDBJ/EMBL/GenBank databases under accession nos. AB234206-AB234210, AB242215-AB224219, and AB242221-AB242223.

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Haruta, C., Suzuki, T. & Kasahara, M. Variable domains in hagfish: NICIR is a polymorphic multigene family expressed preferentially in leukocytes and is related to lamprey TCR-like . Immunogenetics 58, 216–225 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00251-006-0098-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00251-006-0098-1

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