Title: V(D)J recombination
Long Title: IUPAC Gold Book - V(D)J recombination
DOI: 10.1351/goldbook.13770
Status: current

Definition
Mechanism for generating antigen-specific receptors of T cells and B cells; it involves the joining of V, D, and J gene segments, mediated by the enzyme complex V(D)J recombinase, and products of the recombination-activating genes.

Notes
1) The conventional syntax V(D)J indicates that V and J genes code the light chain and all three genes code the heavy chain, the processes being VJ and VDJ recombination, respectively.
2) Recombination occurs only once in a cell’s lifetime.

Related Terms
- B cells: https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/12937
- D: https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/13098
- J gene: https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/13354
- T cells: https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/13724
- V: https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/13772
- heavy chain: https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/13198
- light chain: https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/13386
- recombination-activating genes: https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/13638
- somatic recombination: https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/13689

Source
- PAC, 2012, 84, 1113. 'IUPAC glossary of terms used in immunotoxicology (IUPAC Recommendations 2012)' on page 1258 (https://doi.org/10.1351/PAC-REC-11-06-03)

Other Outputs
- html: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/13770/html
- json: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/13770/json
- xml: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/13770/xml

Citation: Citation: 'V(D)J recombination' in IUPAC Compendium of Chemical Terminology, 5th ed. International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry; 2025. Online version 5.0.0, 2025. 10.1351/goldbook.13770
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Accessed: 2026-06-20T09:05:36+00:00