Tracing the origin of fish immunoglobulins

Abstract

We have studied the origin of immunoglobulin genes in fish. There are two evolutionary lines of bony fish, Actinopterygii and Sarcopterygii. The former gave rise to most of the current fish and the latter to the animals that went to land. Non-teleost actinopterygians are significant evolutionary, sharing a common ancestor with sarcopterygians. There are three different immunoglob- ulin isotypes in ray-finned fish: IgM, IgD and IgT. We deduce that translocon formation in im- munoglobulins genes occurred already in non-teleost Actinopterygii. We establish a relationship between no teleosts and teleostean fish at the domain level of different immunoglobulins. We found two evolutionary lines of immunoglobulin. A line that starts from Immunoglobulin M and another from an ancestral Immunoglobulin W. The M line is stable, and the W line gives rise to the IgD of the fish. Immunoglobulin T emerges by recombination between both lines.