Human immunoglobulin selection associated with class switch and possible tolerogenic origins for Cδ class-switched B cells
J. Clin. Invest. Nai-Ying Zheng, et al. 113:1188 doi:10.1172/JCI20255 [Go to this article.]

Figure 4
Analysis of CDR3 length and frequency of charged residues in various V gene libraries. V genes with long CDR3s and increased numbers of charged amino acids have been associated with increased autoreactivity and are typical in the repertoires of people and mice with autoimmune disease. The n values of donors analyzed per population are indicated on and above the bars, and the particular donors compared are in Table 1. (A) Average length of CDR3s in amino acids of the various donors for the various populations. The average lengths of the Cδ-CS and pre-GC populations are significantly greater then all IgG populations and the IgM memory population (t test, P < 0.01), although the pre-GC cells were from only three donors, one of whom had a particularly large average CDR3 length. (B) Average frequency of V gene clones between donors that are more than 19 amino acids in length. The Cδ-CS frequency of clones with CDR3s longer than 19 amino acids is similar to that of the naive and IgM populations. The IgG populations have on average significantly fewer clones with lengths greater than 19 amino acids than do the naive, IgM, and Cδ-CS populations (t test, P < 0.05). (C) The mean number of charged residues in the CDR regions averaged among donors for each population where positively charged residues (R, K, H) are the black portion of the bars, and negatively charged (acidic) residues (E and D) are represented by the white portion of the bars. Error bars indicate standard deviations between the various donors for all panels.