Gènes du récepteur des lymphocytes T: organisation génomique et mécanismes génétiques de la diversité du répertoire.

The T-cell receptor (TCR) is fundamental to the immune process in both health and disease. Reviewed here is the genetic organisation of the gene complexes which encode the TCR polypeptide chains alpha, beta, gamma, and delta. The TCR is by necessity a diverse structure and we consider the genetic mechanisms responsible for this. These include multiple variable gene segment isotypes, somatic recombination of gene segments, imprecisions in the recombination process and allelic variations in gene segments structure and regulation.