1. Department of Pharmacology, New Haven, Connecticut 06510, USA
2. Department of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry, New Haven, Connecticut 06510 , USA
3. Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Section of Immunobiology, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut 06510, USA

Correspondence to: David G. Schatz³ Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to D.G.S. (e-mail: Email: david.schatz@yale.edu).

Abstract

Immunoglobulin and T-cell-receptor genes are assembled from component gene segments in developing lymphocytes by a site-specific recombination reaction, V (D)J recombination. The proteins encoded by the recombination-activating genes, RAG1 and RAG2, are essential in this reaction, mediating sequence-specific DNA recognition of well-defined recombination signals and DNA cleavage next to these signals. Here we show that RAG1 and RAG2 together form a transposase capable of excising a piece of DNA containing recombination signals from a donor site and inserting it into a target DNA molecule. The products formed contain a short duplication of target DNA immediately flanking the transposed fragment, a structure like that created by retroviral integration and all known transposition reactions. The results support the theory that RAG1 and RAG2 were once components of a transposable element, and that the split nature of immunoglobulin and T-cell-receptor genes derives from germline insertion of this element into an ancestral receptor gene soon after the evolutionary divergence of jawed and jawless vertebrates.

1. Department of Pharmacology, New Haven, Connecticut 06510, USA
2. Department of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry, New Haven, Connecticut 06510 , USA
3. Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Section of Immunobiology, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut 06510, USA

Correspondence to: David G. Schatz³ Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to D.G.S. (e-mail: Email: david.schatz@yale.edu).