Gene mutation in vivo in human T lymphocytes appears to occur preferentially in dividing cells. Individuals with multiple sclerosis (MS) are assumed to have one or more populations of diving T cells that are being stimulated by autoantigens. Mutant T cell clones from MS patients were isolated and tested for reactivity to myelin basic protein, an antigen that is thought to participate in the induction of the disease. The hypoxanthine guanine phosphoribosyltransferase (hprt) clonal assay was used to determine mutant frequency values in MS patients with chronic progressive disease. Eleven of 258 thioguanine-resistant (hprt-) T cell clones from five of the six MS patients who were tested proliferated in response to human myelin basic protein without prior in vitro exposure to this antigen. No wild-type clones from these patients, nor any hprt- or wild-type clones from three healthy individuals responded to myelin basic protein. Thus, T cell clones that react with myelin basic protein can be isolated from the peripheral blood of MS patients.

Determining the amount of human DNA extracted from a crime scene sample is an important step in DNA profiling. The forensic community relies almost entirely upon a technique (slot blot) to quantitate human DNA that is imprecise, time consuming, and labor intensive. We have previously described a method for quantitation of human DNA based on PCR amplification of a repetitive Alu sequence that uses a fluorescence plate reader. This manuscript describes and validates a variation of this assay using real-time PCR and SYBR® Green I for quantitation. The advantages of the real-time assay over the plate reader assay are: reduced hands-on time, lower assay cost, and a greater dynamic range. The main disadvantage is the cost of the real-time instrument. However, for those forensic laboratories with access to a real-time instrument, this Alu-based assay has a dynamic range of 16 ng to 1 pg, is sensitive, specific, fast, quantitative, and uses only 2 L of sample.

The rearrangement of immunoglobulin (Ig) and T-cell receptor (TCR) genes in lymphocytes by V(D)J recombinase is essential for immunological diversity in humans. These DNA rearrangements involve cleavage by the RAG1 and RAG2 (RAG1/2) recombinase enzymes at recombination signal sequences (RSS). This reaction generates two products, cleaved signal ends and coding ends. Coding ends are ligated by non-homologous end-joining proteins to form a functional Ig or TCR gene product, while the signal ends form a signal joint. In vitro studies have demonstrated that RAG1/2 are capable of mediating the transposition of cleaved signal ends into non-specific sites of a target DNA molecule. However, to date, in vivo transposition of signal ends has not been demonstrated. We present evidence of in vivo inter-chromosomal transposition in humans mediated by V(D)J recombinase. T-cell isolates were shown to contain TCRalpha signal ends from chromosome 14 inserted into the X-linked hypo xanthine-guanine phosphoribosyl transferase locus, resulting in gene inactivation. These findings implicate V(D)J recombinase-mediated transposition as a mutagenic mechanism capable of deleterious genetic rearrangements in humans.

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Changes in mitochondrial DNA copy number and increases in mitochondrial DNA mutations, especially deletions, have been associated with exposure to mutagens and with aging. Common deletions that are the result of recombination between direct repeats in human and rat (4,977 and 4,834, bp, respectively) are known to increase in tissues of aged individuals. Previous studies have used long-distance PCR and Southern blot or quantitative PCR to determine the frequency of deleted mitochondrial DNA. A quantitative PCR (TaqMan) assay was developed to detect both mitochondrial DNA copy number and deletion frequency in the rat. This methodology allows not only the determination of changes in the amount of mitochondrial DNA deletion relative to total mitochondrial DNA but also to determine changes in total mitochondrial DNA relative to genomic DNA. As a validation of the assay in rat liver, the frequency of the common 4,834 bp deletion is shown to increase with age, while the relative mitochondrial DNA copy number rises at a young age (3-60 days), then decreases and holds fairly steady to 2 years of age.