Abstract
Germline immunoglobulin heavy chain gene transcription is though to direct isotype switching by modulating the accessibility of specific switch regions to a recombinase. In this study, cloned cDNA copies of mouse germlineIgh-8 RNAs have been used to characterize theIgh-8 transcription unit. The 5' end of these transcripts are derived from an exon denotedIg3, located 1 kilobase 5' of theIgh-8 switch region. Sequence analysis of cDNA and genomic clones reveals that these RNAs are noncoding. In splenic B cell cultures treated with lipopolysaccharide (LPS), germlineIgh-8 transcript levels are upregulated after 8 h due to increased transcription. This induction is consistent with the identification of a putative binding site for the LPS inducible transcription factor NF-gkB approximately 150 nucleotides upstream of the sites of transcript initiation. Furthermore, nucleotide sequence comparisons reveal that the region encompassing the site of germlineIgh-8 transcription initiation is highly homologous to part of the Ig2b exon, and is also conserved upstream of the Igh-1 switch region. The implications of these findings for the control of germlineIgh-8 transcription is discussed.
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The nucleotide sequence data reported in this paper have been submitted to the GenBank nucleotide sequence database and have been assigned the accession number M 64431.
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Gerondakis, S., Gaff, C., Goodman, D.J. et al. Structure and expression of mouse germline immunoglobulin γ3 heavy chain transcripts induced by the mitogen lipopolysaccharide. Immunogenetics 34, 392–400 (1991). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01787490
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01787490