| The efficiency of the adaptive immune system is dependent on the diverse repertoire of antigen receptors expressed on the surface of mature B lymphocytes, surface immunoglobulins (sIg). For a B lymphocyte to produce a virtually unique sIg receptor, it relies on a process of site-specific recombination to create the genes coding for this receptor. Rather than being specified in the germline, these are created through the somatic assembly of individual members of various germline gene segment families (V, D and J gene segments), a process commonly referred to as V(D)J recombination.;This thesis describes studies on the control and regulation of V(D)J recombination at one of the human Ig loci, the Ig;Chapter 4 also provides an example of a functional V... |
