Emergence and evolution of functional heavy-chain antibodies in Camelidae

Antibodies of jawed-vertebrates are composed of paired heavy (H) and light (L) polypeptide chains. Surprisingly, the sera of camelids, nurse shark and wobbegong shark, and possibly ratfish contain antibodies that lack L-chains. In camelids, these Heavy-chain antibodies (HCAbs) are gamma-isotypes, and are functional in antigen binding. In this review we focus on the dedicated immunoglobulin (Ig) genes that encode the HCAb in Camelidae (camels, dromedaries and llamas), about their origin, and how these camel immumoglobulins evolved and acquire a large and diverse repertoire of antigen binding sites in absence of the H-L combinatorial diversity. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.