A model substrate for the joining of Ig VH and DJH elements has been constructed in a retroviral vector carrying a selectable marker whose expression is independent of the arrangement of the resident Ig gene segments. The substrate was introduced into lymphoid and nonlymphoid cells, and site-specific recombination between the VH and DJH elements was monitored by a direct hybridization assay. Jo...

Background: Telomeres play a dramatic role in sperm pronuclei formation and subsequently successful fertilization. The H2B family, member W, testis specific (H2BFWT) gene encodes a testis specific histone that colocalized with telomeric sequences and interfere in the dynamic rearrangement of telomeres at late stages of spermatogenesis. H2BFWT is essential for transmission of the telomeric chrom...

A key feature of B and T lymphocyte development is the generation of antigen receptors through the rearrangement and assembly of the germline variable (V), diversity (D), and joining (J) gene segments. However, the mechanisms responsible for regulating developmentally ordered gene rearrangements are largely unknown. Here we show that the E2A gene products are essential for the proper coordinate...

Rearrangements of the ALL-1 gene by reciprocal translocations involv ing chromosome band Hq23 are frequently associated with human acute leukemia. We have previously reported the detection of ALL-1 gene rearrangements in adult patients with acute myeloid leukemia lacking cytogenetic evidence of Hq23 translocations. These included 2 of 19 patients with normal karyotypes as well as 3 of 4 patient...

Previous work (6-10) has shown that allelic exclusion of Ig gene expression is controlled by functionally rearranged mu and kappa genes. This report deals with the comparison of membrane mu (micron) and secreted mu (microsecond) in promoting such feedback inhibition. Splenic B cell hybridomas were analyzed from transgenic mice harboring a rearranged kappa gene alone or in combination with eithe...

We introduce a model that describes rearrangement pathways of DNA recombination events. The recombination processes may happen in a succession, possibly with some recombination events performed simultaneously, but others in a prescribed order. These events are modeled by three rewriting rules applied on a set of formal linear and circular words.We define a partial order on these sets in such aw...

Mice deficient for the B cell-restricted transcription factor Pax5 show a defect in the VH to DJH rearrangement step of immunoglobulin heavy chain gene assembly even though the expression of the V(D)J recombinase is not diminished in Pax5-/- pro-B cells. To investigate whether Pax5 is limiting for VH to DJH rearrangement, we generated transgenic mice which express Pax5 in developing thymocytes....

During the development of B and T cells, a number of genes undergo rearrangement. In this paper we have studied the structure of the T cell gamma-chain gene in primary lymphomas and cell lines derived from patients with lymphoma. Samples derived from patients with angioimmunoblastic lymphadenopathy (AIL), Lennert's lymphoma, and Hodgkin's disease were also examined. TcR gamma was rearranged in ...

We have used Abelson murine leukemia virus (A-MuLV) transformed pre-B cell lines to test the hypothesis that the rearrangement potential of a developing B-lymphocyte is dependent on an "opening" of the chromatin structure surrounding immunoglobulin (Ig) genes, thus allowing accessibility to an Ig gene recombinase. The chromatin structures surrounding heavy (H), kappa (kappa), and lambda (lambda...