Human immunoglobulin V.sub.H gene segments and DNA fragments con

Organic compounds -- part of the class 532-570 series – Organic compounds – Carbohydrates or derivatives

Patent

Rate now

  [ 0.00 ] – not rated yet Voters 0   Comments 0

Details

536 231, 536 2351, 435 911, C07M 2104

Patent

active

060968788

DESCRIPTION:

BRIEF SUMMARY
This is a 371 national stage filing of International Application No. PCT/JP93/00603, with an international filing data of May 10, 1993, now abandoned.


TECHNICAL FIELD

This invention relates to novel human immunoglobulin V.sub.H gene segments and DNA fragments containing the same. The segments and DNA fragments according to this present invention are useful for producing human antibodies using a mammalian host by a genetic engineering process.


BACKGROUND ART

Immunoglobulins are composed of the L chains and H chains, each of which consists of a variable region (V region) and a constant region (C region) that has a structure common to immunoglobulin molecules. What determines the antigenic specificity of an antibody is the V region. The V region of the H chain is encoded by V, D (diversity) and J (joining) genes (The gene of the H chain is expressed by placing a suffix "H", like "V.sub.H "). One of the important reasons why the V regions of immunoglobulins are highly diverse and can provide antibodies which specifically binds to infinite number of antigens is the rearrangement of V, D and J genes. That is, there are a plurality of V genes, D genes and J genes, respectively and they are randomly combined in somatic cells to form a gene encoding a single mRNA. Since the combination is randomly selected, side variety of immunoglobulin V regions are provided.
On the other hand, antibodies currently employed for therapies of various diseases are those originated from animals other than human, such as mouse. However, if these antibodies are administered to human, since the antibodies are of exogenous origin, an immunological response occurs in the human body to present allergy and to neutralize the antibodies. To overcome this problem, it is desired to use antibodies originated from human for the therapies for human. Further, if a human antibody is industrially produced using human as the host and using a human-originated antigen, a problem of immunological tolerance is brought about, so that this approach employing the known method is very difficult. Thus, the production of human immunoglobulins by a genetic engineering process using an animal as a host is now being developed (for example, Japanese Laid-open PCT Application (Kohyo) No. 4-504365; Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, Vol. 86, pp.5898-5902, August 1989; Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, Vol. 87, pp.5109-5113, July 1990; Genomics 8, 742-750 (1991)). However, in the conventional methods in which human immunoglobulin genes are expressed in host animals other than human, there is a problem that the number of human V.sub.H segments provided for the genetic recombination is very small, so that the diversity of the expressed human immunoglobulins is limited. Even if only one V.sub.H segment is recombined, the diversity of the immunoglobulin is assured to some degree because of the combination with D and J genes. However, as mentioned above, since the diversity of immunoglobulins is determined by the rearrangement (random combination) of V gene segments, the more the human V.sub.H segments recombined, the higher the diversity of the immunoglobulins expressed. If the diversity of immunoglobulins is increased, not only antibodies against a number of antigens can be formed, but also the possibility of forming an antibody having a high specificity to a given antigen is promoted. Therefore, it is important for therapies and diagnoses to recombine V.sub.H segments as many as possible.


DISCLOSURE OF THE INVENTION

Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide a DNA fragment comprising a plurality of human immunoglobulin V.sub.H segments. Another object of the present invention is to provide a novel human immunoglobulin V.sub.H segments.
The present inventors intensively studied to succeed in determining human immunoglobulin H chain V region gene segments having a size of about 800 kb and in determining DNA sequences of 64 human V.sub.H segments contained therein. This made it possible to provide this DNA fragment of 800 kb and various DNA fragments contain

REFERENCES:
The Journal of Immunology, vol. 149, No. 4, (1992) E.H. Sasso et al.; "V.sub.H genes in tandem array comprise related germline motif"; pp. 1230-1236.
The Journal of Immunology, vol. 148, No. 9, (1992) K.W. van Dijk et al., "Mapping of human H chain V region genes (V.sub.H 4) using deletional analysis and pulsed field gel electrophoresis"; pp. 2923-2931.
European Journal of Immunology, vol. 23, No. 4, (1993) X. Mariette et al., "Nucleotide sequence analysis of four human monoclonal IgM with an antibody activity to myelin-associated glycoprotein"; pp. 846-851.
Blood, vol. 76, No. 10 (1990) O.G. Jonsson et al., "Detection of minimal residual disease in acute lympho-blastic leukemia using immunoglobulin hypervariable region specific oligo-nucleotide probes", pp. 2072-2079.
Article; "Structure and Physical Map of 64 Variable Segments . . . Heavy-Chain Locus"; Nature Genetics; vol. 3; Jan. 1993; pp. 88-94.
"The Repertoire of Human Germline V.sub.H Sequences . . . Hypervariable Loops"; 1992 Academic Press Limited; J. Mol. Biol. 227; pp. 776-798.
"Immunoglobulin Heavy and Light Chain . . . Germline Genes"; Immunology Letters 34 (1992); pp. 57-62; Elsevier Science Publishers B.V.
"Nucleotide Sequences of the cDNAs . . . HIV-1--gp41"; Nucleic Acids Research; vol. 18, No. 16; 1990 Oxford University Press; p. 4927.
"Expression of Members of the Immunoglobulin . . . Leukemia"; International Immunology; vol. 4, No. 3; pp. 313-320 1989.
"Content and Organization of the Human Ig . . . Locus"; The EMBO Journal; vol. 7, No. 3; pp. 737-738; 1988.
"The Human Cord Blood Antibody . . . Family"; Eur. J. Immunol. 22 (1992) pp. 241-245.
"Early Restriction of the Human Antibody Repertoire"; Science vol. 238 (1987); pp. 791-793.
"Preferential Utilization of Conserved Immunoglobulin . . . Life"; Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. vol. 87 (1990) pp. 6146-6150.
"Restricted Ig H Chain V Gene Usage . . . Polysaccharide"; J. Immunol. vol. 147 (1991); pp. 1667-1674.
"V.sub.H Sequence of a Human Anti-Sm . . . Germline Genes"; J. Immunol. vol. 142 (1989); pp. 883-887.
"The Role of Clonal Selection . . . Lymphoma"; J. Exp. Med. vol. 174 (1991); pp. 525-537.
"Structural Analyses of Human Developmentally Regulated Vh3 Genes"; Scand. J. Immunol. vol. 31 (1990); pp. 257-267.
"Relationship of Human Variable Region . . . Autoantibodies"; J. Immunol. vol. 139 (1987); pp. 2496-2501.
Nucleotide Sequences of the cDNAs . . . Tumor Cells; Nucleic Acids Res.; vol. 17, No. 11 (1989; p. 4385.
"Structure and Multiplicity of Genes . . . Region"; Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. vol. 77 (1980); pp. 6561-6565.
"Nucleotide Sequences of Eight Human . . . Families"; J. Immunol. vol. 142 (1989); pp. 4054-4061.
"Early Human IgH Gene Assembly . . . Cell Lines", J. Exp. Med. vol. 169 (1989); pp. 1391-1403.
"Presence of Immunoglobulin (Ig) M and IgG . . . Immunodeficiency"; J. Clin. Invest. vol. 85 (1990); pp. 1722-1727.
"Analysis of Variable Region Genes . . . Origin"; J. Immunol. 143 (1989); pp. 685-691.
"Molecular Basis of an Autoantibody-associated Restriction Fragment Length . . . Diseases"; J. Clin. Invest. vol. 88 (1991); pp. 193-203.
"The Complete Nucleotide Sequences . . . Rheumatoid Arthritis"; J. Clin. Invest. vol. 86 (1990); pp. 1320-1328.
"Relationship of Variable Region Geneses . . . Autoantibodies"; J. Exp. Med. vol. 169 (1989); pp. 1631-1643.
"Complete Sequence of the Genes Encoding . . . Arthritis Patient"; Int. Immunol. vol. 3 (1991); pp. 865-875.
"Evolutionary Aspects of Immunoglobulin . . . Subgroups"; Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. vol. 80 (1983) pp. 855-859.
"Human Heavy-Chain Variable Region . . . Leukemia"; Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. vol. 84 (1987); pp. 8563-8567.
"The Smaller Human V.sub.H Gene . . . Polymorphism"; EMBO J. vol. 8 (1989); pp. 3471-3478.
"Organization and Evolution of Immunglobulin V.sub.H Gene Subgroups"; Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. vol. 79 (1982); pp. 4405-4409.
"A New Human Immunoglobulin . . . B-Cell Tumours"; Nature vol. 331 (1988); pp. 446-449.
"Chromosomal Organiza

LandOfFree

Say what you really think

Search LandOfFree.com for the USA inventors and patents. Rate them and share your experience with other people.

Rating

Human immunoglobulin V.sub.H gene segments and DNA fragments con does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.

If you have personal experience with Human immunoglobulin V.sub.H gene segments and DNA fragments con, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Human immunoglobulin V.sub.H gene segments and DNA fragments con will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

     

Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-665234

  Search
All data on this website is collected from public sources. Our data reflects the most accurate information available at the time of publication.