Organization and Reorganization of Antigen Receptor Genes

The successful elaboration of immune responses in vertebrates is critically dependent on the generation of a satisfactory repertoire of antigen receptor structures capable of discriminating the universe of pathogens from a similarly complex set of autologous determinants. Diversification of antigen receptors is achieved through somatically propagated gene rearrangement events that juxtapose discontinuous germline gene segments, forming lymphocyte-specific transcriptional units. The combinatorial assembly of antigen receptor gene segments permits a limited amount of germline genetic material to encode an enormous repertoire of distinct recognition structures.