Transcriptional activation of immunoglobulin alpha heavy-chain genes by translocation of the c-myc oncogene - PubMed (original) (raw)

Transcriptional activation of immunoglobulin alpha heavy-chain genes by translocation of the c-myc oncogene

M Dean et al. Nature. 1983.

Abstract

Our previous studies with the mouse myeloma MOPC 315 (IgA, lambda 2) cell line, using myeloma mutants that had deleted the productive alpha heavy (H)-chain gene, had shown that the excluded alpha constant-region (C alpha) allele in these cells is transcriptionally active. Recent reports from several laboratories have demonstrated that in many BALB/c mouse myelomas, including MOPC 315, the DNA segment encoding the c-myc oncogene is translocated to a C alpha allele. The mRNA coding strand of DNA for the c-myc gene is on the opposite strand from the immunoglobulin gene in this locus. We have now investigated the relationship between the c-myc translocation and transcriptional activity of excluded C alpha alleles in IgA- and IgG-producing mouse myeloma lines. We report here that c-myc-C alpha recombination events correlate with demethylation and transcription of C alpha genes. Several novel C alpha RNA species are produced, which are transcribed from the immunoglobulin-gene sense strand. The larger C alpha RNAs appear to contain c-myc sequences. Thus the anti-sense strand of the c-myc gene provides a promoter for transcription of the C alpha gene. This result suggests that in other transformed cells with a c-myc-immunoglobulin gene translocation, including many Burkitt's lymphomas, activation of the adjacent immunoglobulin gene would occur.

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