Identification of Immunoglobulin Gene Sequences from a Small Read Number of mRNA-Seq Using Hybridomas

PLoS One. 2016 Oct 27;11(10):e0165473. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0165473. eCollection 2016.

Abstract

Identification of immunoglobulin genes in hybridomas is essential for producing antibodies for research and clinical applications. A couple of methods such as RACE and degenerative PCR have been developed for determination of the Igh and Igl/Igk coding sequences (CDSs) but it has been difficult to process a number of hybridomas both with accuracy and rapidness. Here, we propose a new strategy for antibody sequence determination by mRNA-seq of hybridomas. We demonstrated that hybridomas highly expressed the Igh and Igl/Igk genes and that de novo transcriptome assembly using mRNA-seq data enabled identification of the CDS of both Igh and Igl/Igk accurately. Furthermore, we estimated that only 30,000 sequenced reads are required to identify immunoglobulin sequences from four different hybridoma clones. Thus, our approach would facilitate determining variable CDSs drastically.

MeSH terms

  • Gene Expression Profiling
  • Genes, Immunoglobulin / genetics*
  • Humans
  • Hybridomas / metabolism*
  • RNA, Messenger / genetics
  • Sequence Analysis, RNA*

Substances

  • RNA, Messenger

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the Core Research for Evolutional Science and Technology (CREST) (http://www.jst.go.jp/kisoken/crest/) and open access charge: Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) KAKENHI [grant numbers 23310134, 25116010, 25132709, 25118518, 26290064] (https://www.jsps.go.jp). We have had the support from the updated grants (JSPS KAKENHI: 15K18457, 16H01219, 16K18479, 16H01577, 16H01550). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.