Genetic Studies of Immunoglobulins in Mice
This extract was created in the absence of an abstract.
Excerpt
The current concept of protein biosynthesis holds that for each type of polypeptide chain there is a corresponding structural gene. When this concept is applied to immunoglobulins, several basic problems develop, chiefly because there are so many immunoglobulins. First, the immunoglobulins within a species or an individual are an extremely heterogeneous group of molecules. The heterogeneity is in a small part due to the several generic types of immunoglobulin chains that serve as subunits of the 4-chain immunoglobulin molecular unit. By far the greatest source of heterogeneity are the primary structural variations among seemingly closely related types of chains (Potter, Dreyer, Kuff, and McIntire, 1964). For example, kappa chains resemble each other in roughly 70 or more per cent of the amino acid sequence as exemplified by the comparisons of the sequences in the mouse (Gray, Dreyer, and Hood, 1967) and man (Putnam, Titani, and Whitley, 1966). In the mouse,...
