Identification of a CSR specific checkpoint

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

ABSTRACT Humoral immune responses require the diversification of the Ig repertoire by means of antigen receptor rearrangements. The mouse Igh locus spans 2.9 Mb within which are ~100 functional VH gene segments that participate in V(D)J recombination and eight CH genes that are used during class switch recombination (CSR). Activation induced deaminase (AID) is essential for both immunoglobulin somatic hypermutation and CSR in mature B cells. CSR requires transcription and induction of DNA double strand breaks (DSBs) that must synapse over long genomic distances to facilitate intra-chromosomal rearrangement. The Igh locus assumes specific chromatin topologies that facilitate CSR and these may vary at different stages of B cell development. In new studies we have examined the relationship between developmentally regulated higher-order chromatin structure, gene expression and recombination using chromosome conformation capture based approaches in combination with functional assessment of CSR. We discovered an unexpectedly high frequency of chromatin interactions among downstream CH genes. This led us to postulate that downstream S regions could recombine with each other. Our studies confirmed this hypothesis and led to a revision of the model for CSR. These studies stimulated us to search for B cell subsets that are actively engaged in CSR. Unexpectedly, B cells that are engaged in CSR become BCR negative and reside in the G1 phase of the cell cycle suggesting the presence of a DNA double strand break checkpoint. Furthermore, BCR- cells dynamically transition to IgM+ and then re-cycle to BCR-. Here we propose to profile the transcriptome of B cell subsets engaged in CSR and determine their cell fate branch point. These studies are very important since BCR negative B cells will be unresponsive to exogenous antigen and this has important implications for B cell activation.