Transgenic Scid Mice With a Functionally Rearranged Immunoglobulin Heavy Chain Gene

Abstract

As reported and cited in this volume, there is now considerable evidence in support of the hypothesis (Schuler et al. 1986) that V(D)J recombination is severely impaired in developing B and T lymphocytes of mice homozygous for the scid mutation (scid mice). Consequently, early scid lymphocytes fail to mature and presumably die prematurely. This would explain, for example, the absence of detectable pre-B cells in the bone marrow of scid mice (Dorshkind et al. 1984; Schuler et al. 1988). However, on rare occasions, a given recombinase-active scid lymphocyte may succeed in making functional V(D)J rearrangements at two critical alleles and give rise to a clone of B or T lymphocytes; mice with one or more such clones are referred to as leaky scid mice (Bosma et al. 1988; Carroll and Bosma 1988).