On the mechanism of non-allelically excluded V alpha-J alpha T cell receptor secondary rearrangements in a murine T cell lymphoma.

We had previously demonstrated that several subclones derived from a CD3+, CD4-/CD8-, TCR-alpha beta+ murine T cell line have undergone secondary V alpha-J alpha rearrangements at the TCR-alpha locus (1). In an effort to examine the molecular mechanism responsible for these V alpha-J alpha replacements, the structures of TCR-alpha cDNA prepared from both the parental and subcloned T cell lines have been determined. Here we report that: 1) the mechanism whereby the secondary rearrangements occur is a precise deletion event that involves germ-line V alpha genes 5' to the preexisting V alpha-J alpha complex joining to J alpha segments 3' of the preexisting complex deleting the region in between, 2) preexisting productive V alpha-J alpha rearrangements of the parental line do not allelically exclude productive and nonproductive secondary rearrangements, 3) both productively rearranged TCR-alpha alleles of the parental cell line can undergo secondary rearrangements, 4) the presence of unrearranged germline V alpha transcripts in the parental line support an "accessibility" model of regulated lymphocyte receptor gene rearrangement. In addition, we present data which suggests that one of the subcloned lines has undergone a third rearrangement of one of its TCR-alpha alleles. One interpretation of these results is that T cells may have the ability to circumvent allelic exclusion at the TCR-alpha locus early in their ontogeny. This could provide T cells with an additional mechanism for generating an Ag receptor repertoire which is not found in B cells.