RAG1 and RAG2: Discovery, Mechanism, and Evolution of the V(D)J Recombinase

Part I (you are reading this) Part II Part III The adaptive immune system depends on a controlled act of genomic violence. To recognize an almost infinite variety of pathogens, developing lymphocytes deliberately break and rejoin their own DNA, assembling antigen receptor genes from modular fragments. For decades, immunologists understood the outcome of this process but not its cause: what enzyme…