PMID: 17431183 , Related PDB ids: 2H32, 2H3N

Authors:

Bankovich AJ, Raunser S, Juo ZS, Walz T, Davis MM, Garcia KC

Title:

Structural insight into pre-B cell receptor function.

Journal:

Science. 2007 Apr 13;316(5822):291-4.

Abstract:

The pre-B cell receptor (pre-BCR) serves as a checkpoint in B cell development. In the 2.7 angstrom structure of a human pre-BCR Fab-like fragment, consisting of an antibody heavy chain (HC) paired with the surrogate light chain, the "unique regions" of VpreB and lambda5 replace the complementarity-determining region 3 (CDR3) loop of an antibody light chain and appear to "probe" the HC CDR3, potentially influencing the selection of the antibody repertoire. Biochemical analysis indicates that the pre-BCR is impaired in its ability to recognize antigen, which, together with electron microscopic visualization of a pre-BCR dimer, suggests ligand-independent oligomerization as the likely signaling mechanism.