Sequence and organization of the human T cell δ chain gene

Abstract
A novel human T cell receptor (TcR) gene, located 85 kbp upstream to the Cα coding regions, was isolated using human genomic clones to identify cDNA homologous to messages encoded by this region. The deduced protein sequence of this gene is highly homologous to that of the newly identified constant region found in the murine TcR α chain locus. This gene undergoes rearrangements and is expressed at the RNA level in human thymocytes, peripheral T cells and several leukemic T cell lines which have been shown to express the surface γ‐δ heterodimer, suggesting that this gene encodes the human T cell δ chain.