Journal
JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL MEDICINE
Volume 193, Issue 2, Pages 159-168Publisher
ROCKEFELLER UNIV PRESS
DOI: 10.1084/jem.193.2.159
Keywords
gene rearrangement; B lymphocyte; heavy chain; class switching; immunoglobulin isotype
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Funding
- NIAID NIH HHS [AI23283, AI24465, R01 AI024465, AI42108, T32 AI007077, R01 AI023283] Funding Source: Medline
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Class switch DNA recombinations change the constant (C) region of the antibody heavy (H) chain expressed by a B cell and thereby change the antibody effector function. Unusual tandemly repeated sequence elements located upstream of H chain gene exons have long been thought to be important in the targeting and/or mechanism of the switch recombination process. We have deleted the entire switch tandem repeat element (S mu) from the murine mu H chain gene. We find that the S mu tandem repeats are not required for class switching in the mouse immunoglobulin H-chain locus, although the efficiency of switching is clearly reduced. Our data demonstrate that sequences outside of the S mu tandem repeats must be capable of directing the class switch mechanism. The maintenance of the highly repeated S mu element during evolution appears to reflect selection for a highly efficient switching process rather than selection for a required sequence element.
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