Population-level genomic analysis of immunoglobulin loci variation in rhesus macaques reveals extensive germline diversity.

Rhesus macaques (RMs) are a vital model for studying human disease and are invaluable to preclinical vaccine research, particularly for the study of broadly neutralizing antibody responses. Such studies require robust genetic resources for antibody-encoding genes within the immunoglobulin (IG) loci. The complexity of the IG loci has historically made them challenging to characterize accurately. To address this, we developed experimental and computational methodologies to generate a collection of integrated antibody repertoire and long-read genomic sequencing data in 106 Indian-origin RMs. We created a resource of IG heavy- and light-chain variable (V), diversity (D), and joining (J) alleles, as well as leader, intronic, and recombination signal sequences (RSSs). This includes the curation of 1,095 previously unidentified alleles, unveiling tremendous diversity and expanding existing IG allele sets by 40%. This publicly available, continually updated resource (https://vdjbase.org/reference_book/Rhesus_Macaque) provides the foundation for advancing RM immunogenomics, vaccine discovery, and translational research.

• Publication year

  2026

• Venue

  Immunity

• Publication date

  2026-01-01

• Fields of study

  Biology, Medicine

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1016/j.immuni.2025.12.002PMID 41494536
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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