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-deficient Mice: No Evidence for
Cell Surface Expression of Two T Cell Receptor (TCR)-
Chains, but Less Efficient Inhibition of Endogeneous
V
(D)J
Rearrangements in the Presence of a
Functional TCR-
Transgene
By

From the * Basel Institute for Immunology, CH-4005 Basel, Switzerland; and the Although individual T lymphocytes have the potential to generate two distinct T cell receptor
(TCR)-
Institut Necker,
Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Medicale 373, F-75730 Paris Cedex 15, France
chains, they usually express only one allele, a phenomenon termed allelic exclusion. Expression of a functional TCR-
chain during early T cell development leads to the formation of a pre-T cell receptor (pre-TCR) complex and, at the same developmental stage, arrest
of further TCR-
rearrangements, suggesting a role of the pre-TCR in mediating allelic exclusion. To investigate the potential link between pre-TCR formation and inhibition of further TCR-
rearrangements, we have studied the efficiency of allelic exclusion in mice lacking
the pre-TCR-
(pT
) chain, a core component of the pre-TCR. Staining of CD3+ thymocytes and lymph node cells with antibodies specific for V
6 or V
8 and a pool of antibodies
specific for most other V
elements, did not reveal any violation of allelic exclusion at the level
of cell surface expression. This was also true for pT
-deficient mice expressing a functionally
rearranged TCR-
transgene. Interestingly, although the transgenic TCR-
chain significantly
influenced thymocyte development even in the absence of pT
, it was not able to inhibit fully
endogeneous TCR-
rearrangements either in total thymocytes or in sorted CD25+ pre-T
cells of pT
/
mice, clearly indicating an involvement of the pre-TCR in allelic exclusion.
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