Work in the laboratory focuses on the regulation of rearrangement and expression of T cell receptor genes. The model system under investigation is the T cell receptor alpha/delta locus. This locus is of particular interest because it contains two sets of gene segments that are differentially activated during T cell development in the thymus. The focus of the work is to identify and characterize the mechanisms by which cis-acting elements within the locus specify the region-specific and developmental stage-specific activation of V(D)J recombination and transcription. To accomplish this, we apply molecular approaches to analyze manipulated versions of a reporter minilocus in thymocytes of transgenic mice, and of the endogenous locus in various knockout strains of mice.
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