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Maryam Shansab, B.
S., Biology, University of Texas, Dallas, TX, M.P.H., International
Health, Boston University, Boston, MA AID (activation induced cytidine deaminase) is an enzyme that is essential for immunoglobulin gene diversification reactions such as somatic hypermutation, class switch recombination, and gene conversion. Previous studies from our lab have shown that DNA sequence transfers that resemble gene conversion, which are common in birds, do occur in transgenic mice containing two homologous VDJ segments. One aspect of my research focuses on investigating whether AID is important for gene conversion events observed in the transgenic mice, and possibly to investigate whether gene conversion is a common phenomenon in mice. Another area of interest is to investigate whether AID plays a role during embryogenesis and if so, to explore its function during embryo development. These questions were raised by the observation that the AID gene is expressed early in development. |
