V delta repertoire during thymic ontogeny suggests three novel waves of gamma delta TCR expression.

Taking advantage of a PCR technique that allows amplification of all variable region genes with equal efficiency, we defined three novel waves of TCR delta-chain transcription during thymic ontogeny. The canonical DV101-D2-J2 rearrangement was confined to a narrow window from days 14 to 18 of gestation, indicating that the postulated two consecutive gamma delta precursor waves bearing this canonical DV101 rearrangement will coincide on day 16. Neonatal delta-chain transcripts used a second wave of diverse V alpha gene segments that are exclusively located in the delta locus-proximal gene cluster of intermingled single members of different V alpha subfamilies. In the adult, only expression of a clan of three homologous subfamilies, ADV7, DV104, and ADV17, persists. The members of the ADV7 subfamily are also scattered across the alpha locus, but their usage does not show the position-dependent bias of the other V alpha-to-delta rearrangements.