The human cytomegalovirus gene product US11 causes rapid degradation of class I major histocompatibility complex (MHCI) heavy chains by inducing their dislocation from the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) and subsequent degradation by the proteasome. This set of reactions resembles the endogenous cellular quality control pathway that removes misfolded or unassembled proteins from the ER. We show that...

By generating phosphorylcholine (PC)-specific, wild-type (mu), and chimeric (mu-I-A alpha) antigen receptor transfectants of mature B cells, we have shown that the COOH terminus of the mu heavy chain is essential for three major functions: immediate signal transduction (measured as changes in intracellular Ca2+), antigen presentation, and induction of immunoglobulin M secretion. A more detailed...

A common residue numbering scheme for all immunoglobulin variable domains (immunoglobulin light chain lambda (V(lambda)) and kappa (V(kappa)) variable domains, heavy chain variable domains (V(H)) and T-cell receptor alpha (V(alpha)), beta (V(beta)), gamma (V(gamma)) and delta (V(delta)) variable domains) has been devised. Based on the spatial alignment of known three-dimensional structures of i...

Background: Formation of secondary structure such as DNA hairpins or loops may influence molecular genetics methods and PCR based approaches necessary for genetic engineering, in addition to gene regulation. Materials and Methods: A polymerase chain reaction with splice overlap extension (SOE-PCR) was used to create fully synthetic 1F5 chimeric anti-CD20 heavy- and light-chain genes. The chi...

The 38 kD molecule is noncovalently associated with beta 2 microglobulin (beta 2m)-free HLA heavy chain-like molecule, and thus forms a second heterodimer distinct from the clonotypic alpha/beta T cell receptor expressed by the same clone of leukemia cells. This second heterodimer (38 kD/HLA) is variably expressed and appears to be associated with the T3 molecule. We suggest, therefore, that it...

A group of 21 patients with immunoproliferative small intestinal disease (IPSID), 10 with alpha heavy chain paraproteinaemia and 11 without it, were HLA typed. The results were compared with 35 disease controls and 120 normal controls. A significant increase of Aw19 and B12 antigens was noted among the patients compared with the control subjects. The high rate of association of both AW19 and B1...

The time course of contractile protein [actin, myosin heavy chain (MHC) and myosin light chain (MLC)] gene expression in the hindlimb muscles of the embryonic mouse (< 15 days gestation) has been correlated with the expression of genes for the myogenic regulatory factors, myogenin and MyoD, and with morphogenetic events. At 14 days gestation, secondary myotubes are not yet present in crural mus...

The vertebrate heart contains two myosin heavy chain isoforms, alpha and beta, which are differentially expressed. To establish a murine model for gene-targeting experiments, we defined the precise temporal expression of the myosin isoforms during cardiogenesis and obtained quantitative measurements of cardiac performance. The relative levels of the alpha- and beta-cardiac transcripts were dete...