Studies on the regulation of gene expression in lymphoid cells.

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The US-Japan Immunology Symposium was held for 2 days at the end of January at Monterey, CA. Nine US and seven Japanese immunologists presented and discussed their up-to-date results. The discussion was focused on the topics i) genes involved in the commitment of lymphoid cells, ii) antigen processing and recognition by T cells, iii) superantigens iv) cytokines and their receptors and v) immune disorders.The RAG-1 and RAG-2 deficient mice were prepared by gene targeting technology. The mice showed a severe combined immune deficiency due to the total lack of lymphoid cells confirming the involvement of these genes in the recombination of the Ig and T cell receptor genes.The class I MHC epitope of a bacterial pathogen which is a nonamer peptide, was identified. Superantigens can activate large number of T cells bearing the target V beta and this can lead to diseases, such as toxic shock. EB virus was shown to make a superantigen and suggested to be involved in the activation of T cells in autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis.An unique structure of cytokine receptors was discussed. Both IL-6 and IL-5 receptors consist of two polypeptide chains, a ligand binding chain and a signal transducer. Signal transducers are common by utilized between several cytokine receptor systems, i. e., IL-5, IL-3 and GM-CSF utilize the same signal transducer and IL-6 and LIF utilize the same gpl30 as a signal transducer. This unique system may be able to explain pleiotropy and redundancy of cytokines.