Immunoglobulin V-gene somatic hypermutation in vitro

1996 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 151
Keyword(s):  
2005 ◽  
Vol 201 (4) ◽  
pp. 637-645 ◽  
Author(s):  
Teresa M. Wilson ◽  
Alexandra Vaisman ◽  
Stella A. Martomo ◽  
Patsa Sullivan ◽  
Li Lan ◽  
...  

Activation-induced cytidine deaminase deaminates cytosine to uracil (dU) in DNA, which leads to mutations at C:G basepairs in immunoglobulin genes during somatic hypermutation. The mechanism that generates mutations at A:T basepairs, however, remains unclear. It appears to require the MSH2–MSH6 mismatch repair heterodimer and DNA polymerase (pol) η, as mutations of A:T are decreased in mice and humans lacking these proteins. Here, we demonstrate that these proteins interact physically and functionally. First, we show that MSH2–MSH6 binds to a U:G mismatch but not to other DNA intermediates produced during base excision repair of dUs, including an abasic site and a deoxyribose phosphate group. Second, MSH2 binds to pol η in solution, and endogenous MSH2 associates with the pol in cell extracts. Third, MSH2–MSH6 stimulates the catalytic activity of pol η in vitro. These observations suggest that the interaction between MSH2–MSH6 and DNA pol η stimulates synthesis of mutations at bases located downstream of the initial dU lesion, including A:T pairs.


1999 ◽  
Vol 189 (10) ◽  
pp. 1611-1620 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrei V. Popov ◽  
Xiangang Zou ◽  
Jian Xian ◽  
Ian C. Nicholson ◽  
Marianne Brüggemann

Transgenic mice carrying a 380-kb region of the human immunoglobulin (Ig) λ light (L) chain locus in germline configuration were created. The introduced translocus on a yeast artificial chromosome (YAC) accommodates the most proximal Igλ variable region (V) gene cluster, including 15 Vλ genes that contribute to >60% of λ L chains in humans, all Jλ-Cλ segments, and the 3′ enhancer. HuIgλYAC mice were bred with animals in which mouse Igκ production was silenced by gene targeting. In the κ−/− background, human Igλ was expressed by ∼84% of splenic B cells. A striking result was that human Igλ was also produced at high levels in mice with normal κ locus. Analysis of bone marrow cells showed that human Igλ and mouse Igκ were expressed at similar levels throughout B cell development, suggesting that the Igλ translocus and the endogenous κ locus rearrange independently and with equal efficiency at the same developmental stage. This is further supported by the finding that in hybridomas expressing human Igλ the endogenous L chain loci were in germline configuration. The presence of somatic hypermutation in the human Vλ genes indicated that the Igλ-expressing cells function normally. The finding that human λ genes can be utilized with similar efficiency in mice and humans implies that L chain expression is critically dependent on the configuration of the locus.


2004 ◽  
Vol 199 (2) ◽  
pp. 265-270 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ahmad Faili ◽  
Said Aoufouchi ◽  
Sandra Weller ◽  
Françoise Vuillier ◽  
Anne Stary ◽  
...  

Base substitutions, deletions, and duplications are observed at the immunoglobulin locus in DNA sequences involved in class switch recombination (CSR). These mutations are dependent upon activation-induced cytidine deaminase (AID) and present all the characteristics of the ones observed during V gene somatic hypermutation, implying that they could be generated by the same mutational complex. It has been proposed, based on the V gene mutation pattern of patients with the cancer-prone xeroderma pigmentosum variant (XP-V) syndrome who are deficient in DNA polymerase η (pol η), that this enzyme could be responsible for a large part of the mutations occurring on A/T bases. Here we show, by analyzing switched memory B cells from two XP-V patients, that pol η is also an A/T mutator during CSR, in both the switch region of tandem repeats as well as upstream of it, thus suggesting that the same error-prone translesional polymerases are involved, together with AID, in both processes.


Blood ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 106 (13) ◽  
pp. 4345-4350 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dörte Bechtel ◽  
Julia Kurth ◽  
Claus Unkel ◽  
Ralf Küppers

In classic Hodgkin lymphoma (HL) and posttransplantation lymphoproliferative disease (PTLD), 2 malignancies frequently associated with Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), the tumor cells often appear to derive from B-cell receptor (BCR)–deficient and therefore preapoptotic germinal center (GC) B cells. To test whether EBV can rescue BCR-less GC B cells, we infected human tonsillar CD77+ GC B cells in vitro with EBV. More than 60 monoclonal lymphoblastoid cell lines (LCLs) were established. Among these, 28 cell lines did not express surface immunoglobulin (sIg). Two of the sIg-negative cell lines carry obviously destructive mutations that have been introduced into originally functional VH gene rearrangements during the process of somatic hypermutation. Quantitative reverse transcriptase–polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) showed that in most other lines the sIg deficiency was not simply the result of transcriptional down-regulation, but it was rather due to posttranscriptional defects. These findings strongly support the idea that EBV plays a central role in the pathogenesis of classic HL and PTLD by rescuing BCR-deficient, preapoptotic GC B cells from apoptosis, and that EBV infection renders the cells independent from survival signals normally supplied by a BCR. The monoclonal LCLs represent valuable models for early stages of lymphoma development in classic HL and PTLD.


2002 ◽  
Vol 196 (5) ◽  
pp. 629-639 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carmela Gurrieri ◽  
Peter McGuire ◽  
Hong Zan ◽  
Xiao-Jie Yan ◽  
Andrea Cerutti ◽  
...  

Chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) arises from the clonal expansion of a CD5+ B lymphocyte that is thought not to undergo intraclonal diversification. Using VHDJH cDNA single strand conformation polymorphism analyses, we detected intraclonal mobility variants in 11 of 18 CLL cases. cDNA sequence analyses indicated that these variants represented unique point-mutations (1–35/patient). In nine cases, these mutations were unique to individual submembers of the CLL clone, although in two cases they occurred in a large percentage of the clonal submembers and genealogical trees could be identified. The diversification process responsible for these changes led to single nucleotide changes that favored transitions over transversions, but did not target A nucleotides and did not have the replacement/silent nucleotide change characteristics of antigen-selected B cells. Intraclonal diversification did not correlate with the original mutational load of an individual CLL case in that diversification was as frequent in CLL cells with little or no somatic mutations as in those with considerable mutations. Finally, CLL B cells that did not exhibit intraclonal diversification in vivo could be induced to mutate their VHDJH genes in vitro after stimulation. These data indicate that a somatic mutation mechanism remains functional in CLL cells and could play a role in the evolution of the clone.


Blood ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 104 (11) ◽  
pp. 1359-1359
Author(s):  
Jitra Kriangkum ◽  
Brian J. Taylor ◽  
Erin R. Strachan ◽  
Steven P. Treon ◽  
Michael J. Mant ◽  
...  

Abstract Clonotypic B cells of Waldenstrom’s macroglobulinemia (WM) are characterized as CD20+IgM+IgD+ cells that are usually somatically mutated in IgH VDJ but for some patients, the clonotypic IgH VDJ is germline (unmutated).For both mutated and unmutated clones, WM lack ongoing somatic hypermutation (SHM) and class switch recombination (CSR). This may be due to abnormalities in switching and/or mutator genes. To understand the nature of unswitched tumor B cells, uracil DNA glycosylase (UDG) and activation-induced cytidine deaminase (AID), the two essential elements for CSR, were analysed in WM. Analysis of 12 WM clones characterized by somatic hypermutation showed that the mutation profile of VH genes had normal transition/transversion ratios at C or G, and thus did not suggest UDG abnormalities. Expression of AID was determined by single stage RT-PCR. Out of 14 patients studied (2 unmutated and 12 mutated VH clones), two of them (WM1-01 and WM1-08,with mutation rates of 0% and 6.2% respectively) gave positive bands. In WM1-01, despite having a germline IgH VDJ, AID is consistently expressed in two bone marrow samples collected three years apart and from which the identical unmutated clonotypic VDJ sequence was isolated. Full-length (FL) AID transcripts of WM have a conserved sequence, thus ruling out the possibility of functional defects due to point mutation. In addition, detection of AID in an unmutated VH clone suggested that lack of SHM does not result from an inability to produce AID. In addition to FL transcripts, three other splice variants were identified in both patients. Single cell analysis indicated that only a small compartment (10% or less), not all, of clonotypic B cells expressed AID, and multiple isoforms may be detectable in individual cells. Whether these splice variants that contain truncated C-terminal ends play a role in the regulation of CSR in WM remains to be investigated. Splice variants, nevertheless, may not characterize tumor B cells since up to 10% of AID-expressing normal activated B cells (n=3) also carried them. In vitro activation of clonotypic WM B cells by CD40L and IL4, using conditions that induced CSR in normal B cells, did not yield detectable class switching in WM B cells. In cultures of B cells from WM, the number of non-clonal B cells increased but the clonotypic B cells did not appear to expand, as indicated by the reduction of clonotypic IgM transcript at 5-days of culture. Thus, as well as failing to undergo somatic mutation or class switching, WM tumor B cells appear unresponsive to CD40L+IL4. They may be fundamentally unresponsive to signals for class switching and their clonal expansion may depend upon alternate signaling pathways.


Blood ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 104 (11) ◽  
pp. 3248-3248
Author(s):  
Sridhar Chaganti ◽  
Noelia Begue Pastor ◽  
Mark T. Drayson ◽  
Andy I. Bell ◽  
Alan B. Rickinson

Abstract Somatic hypermutation of immunoglobulin (Ig) gene sequences in the germinal centres of lymphoid tissues is necessary for affinity maturation of B cell responses to antigen challenge. This process generates a few clones with improved affinity that are selected into B cell memory and many clones with other non favourable Ig mutations, including some cells with functionally inactivated Ig gene that normally die by apoptosis. It is postulated that infection with Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), a B lymphotropic agent linked to several types of B cell lymphoma, can rescue germinal centre cells with unfavourable mutations. This creates a pool of infected cells at greater risk of developing into lymphomas. In the present work, CD38+ germinal centre B cells were separated from tonsil by negative selection for IgD and CD39. Peripheral blood naïve and memory B cell subpopulations were FACS sorted as IgD+, CD27− and IgD−, CD27+ fractions respectively. These cells were infected with EBV (B95.8 strain) in vitro and seeded at limiting dilutions onto fibroblast feeders. EBV transformed lymphoblastoid cell lines (LCLs) from such cultures were analysed for surface Ig phenotype. Naïve B cell transformants were consistently IgM+, IgD+. Memory B cell transformants were IgM+ in some cases but more frequently IgG+ or IgA+. Germinal centre transformants showed the same spectrum of surface Ig phenotypes as memory cell transformants but in addition we identified six germinal centre derived LCLs which were consistently surface Ig negative. Sequencing from these lines confirmed that in at least three cases EBV had rescued cells with functionally inactivated Ig heavy chain gene.


Blood ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 106 (11) ◽  
pp. 2-2 ◽  
Author(s):  
Masumichi Saito ◽  
Ryan T. Phan ◽  
Herbert C. Morse ◽  
Laura Pasqualucci ◽  
Riccardo Dalla-Favera

Abstract Deregulated expression of the proto-oncogenes BCL6 and c-MYC caused by chromosomal translocation or somatic hypermutation is common in non-Hodgkin B cell lymphoma derived from germinal center (GC) B cells, including diffuse large cell lymphoma (DLBCL) and Burkitt lymphoma (BL). Normal GC B cells express BCL6, whereas, surprisingly, they do not express c-MYC, suggesting that the expression of this oncogene in BL and DLBCL (20% of cases) is ectopic (Klein, U. et al. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A100, 2639–2644, 2003). Here we report that c-MYC is absent in proliferating GC B cells because it is transcriptionally suppressed by BCL6, as demonstrated by the presence of specific BCL6 binding sites in the c-MYC promoter region and by chromatin immunoprecipitation experiments showing that BCL6 is bound to these sites in vivo. Thus, c-MYC escapes BCL6-mediated suppression in lymphoma leading to the co-expression of the two transcription factors, an event never observed in immunohistochemical and gene expression profile analysis of normal GC B cells. Surprisingly, co-immunoprecipitation experiments and in vitro binding experiments indicate that, when co-expressed, BCL6 and c-MYC are physically bound in a novel complex detectable in DLBCL and BL cell lines as well as in primary lymphoma cases. The formation of the BCL6/c-MYC complex has several significant functional consequences on the function of both c-MYC and BCL6: 1) a two fold, BCL6-binding dependent increase in c-MYC half-life, an event that has been shown to contribute to its oncogenic activation; 2) a synergistic increase in the ability of both BCL6 and c-MYC to suppress MIZ1-activated transcription of the p21CIP cell cycle arrest gene; 3) MYC-dependent inhibition of BCL6 acetylation by p300, an event that physiologically inactivates BCL6 via c-MYC-mediated recruitment of HDAC. Notably, the pathologic co-expression of c-MYC and BCL6 was shown to have pathologic consequences in vivo, since double transgenic BCL6/c-MYC mice display accelerated lymphoma development and the appearance of a novel GC-derived tumor phenotype not recognizable in single transgenic animals and containing the pathologic c-MYC/BCL6 complex. Thus, the pathologic co-expression and illegitimate physical interaction of BCL6 and c-MYC leads to an increase in the constitutive activity of both oncogenes. These results identify a novel mechanism of oncogenic function for BCL6 and c-MYC and a novel tumor-specific protein complex of potential therapeutic interest.


Blood ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 114 (22) ◽  
pp. 3974-3974
Author(s):  
Jonathan H Schatz ◽  
Hans-Guido Wendel

Abstract Abstract 3974 Poster Board III-910 The PI3K/Akt/mTor pathway is among the most frequently deregulated in human cancers, including many leukemias and lymphomas, and inhibitors targeting it at multiple levels are either clinically available or under development. The Pim family proteins are oncogenic serine/threonine kinases expressed in many malignancies and that have numerous overlapping downstream targets and functional consequences with PI3K/Akt/mTor. We here investigate the role of Pim proteins in oncogenesis and their ability in particular to mediate resistance to mTor inhibition. We find over-expression and genomic amplification of Pim1 and Pim2 in tumor samples and cell lines derived from patients with multiple B lymphomas. We show that both Pim1 and Pim2 powerfully mediate resistance to apoptosis in the murine pro-B cell line FL5-12 when withdrawn from IL-3. In murine tumor cells with constitutive activation of mTor, Pim1 and Pim2 provide resistance to treatment with the mTor inhibitor rapamycin. In vivo, we find that murine Pim2 (mPim2) accelerates tumorigenesis in the Eu-Myc transgenic model of Burkitt's lymphoma in a manner highly similar to Akt. However, unlike Akt, mPim2 leads to tumors that resist sensitization to chemotherapy by co-administration of rapamycin. We also investigate Pim1's role as a target of aberrant somatic hypermutation (ASHM), the process by which the enzyme activation induced deamidase (AID) introduces mutations into the coding and non-coding regions of the Pim1 locus and other proto-oncogenes in many B-cell malignancies. We find that structural Pim1 mutants found in patient tumors samples retain their ability to accelerate tumorigenesis in the Eu-Myc model in vivo and to mediate resistance to apoptosis and rapamycin in vitro. In conclusion, Pim activity is clinically significant, highly oncogenic, and provides resistance to mTor inhibition. Pim inhibition is therefore an attractive therapeutic approach, especially in combination with PI3K/Akt/mTor inhibition, even as ASHM provides a potential mechanism for B-cell tumors to escape it. Disclosures: No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.


Author(s):  
Brigette Tippin ◽  
Myron F. Goodman

The mechanism of somatic hypermutation of the immunoglobulin genes remains a mystery after nearly 30 years of intensive research in the field. While many clues to the process have been discovered in terms of the genetic elements required in the immunoglobulin genes, the key enzymatic players that mediate the introduction of mutations into the variable region are unknown. The recent wave of newly discovered eukaryotic DNA polymerases have given a fresh supply of potential candidates and a renewed vigour in the search for the elusive mutator factor governing affinity maturation. In this paper, we discuss the relevant genetic and biochemical evidence known to date regarding both somatic hypermutation and the new DNA polymerases and address how the two fields can be brought together to identify the strongest candidates for further study. In particular we discuss evidence for the in vitro biochemical misincorporation properties of human Rad30B/Pol ι and how it compares to the in vivo somatic hypermutation spectra.


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