scholarly journals Molecular mechanisms that control expression of the B lymphocyte antigen receptor complex.

1995 ◽  
Vol 181 (1) ◽  
pp. 161-168 ◽  
Author(s):  
S A Grupp ◽  
R N Mitchell ◽  
K L Schreiber ◽  
D J McKean ◽  
A K Abbas

The B cell receptor for antigen (BCR) is a complex of membrane immunoglobulin (mIg) and at least two other proteins, Ig alpha (mb-1) and Ig beta (B29). This complex promotes surface expression of the BCR and acts to transduce an activation signal. We have used a system of mu heavy chain constructs transfected into murine B cell lines to probe structure-function relationships in the BCR complex. One mutant mu chain, in which two polar transmembrane residues (Tyr587, Ser588) are replaced with valine, fails to associate with Ig alpha and Ig beta and is incapable of transducing signals as a result of mIg cross-linking. This mutant is expressed on the surface at high levels when transfected into a plasmacytoma line that lacks Ig alpha, whereas wild-type mu is retained in this cell line in the endoplasmic reticulum. Pulse-chase and immunoprecipitation analyses indicate that the mutant is more rapidly released from calnexin than the wild-type mu. Further, transfection of Ig alpha into this Ig alpha-negative cell line allows release of the mu chain from calnexin and surface expression of the BCR. These results identify the transmembrane residues of mu heavy chain that control binding to calnexin and Ig alpha, and suggest that calnexin-dependent intracellular retention is an important control mechanism for expression of the BCR complex.

1994 ◽  
Vol 14 (6) ◽  
pp. 4087-4096 ◽  
Author(s):  
Y Jacobs ◽  
X Q Xin ◽  
K Dorshkind ◽  
C Nelson

A newly developed rat long-term bone marrow culture system was used to study the role of Pan/E2A basic helix-loop-helix transcription factors during B-cell development. In this system, B-lymphocyte progenitors actively differentiate into mature B cells. Monoclonal (Yae) and polyclonal (anti-Pan) antibodies were employed to characterize the expression of Pan proteins by Western blot assay during hematopoiesis and to examine the components of immunoglobulin heavy-chain gene enhancer element-binding species by electrophoretic mobility shift assay. During B-cell development, the appearance of Pan/E2A proteins preceded the expression of immunoglobulin heavy-chain protein. A Pan-containing immunoglobulin heavy-chain enhancer element (mu E5)-binding species (BCF1), composed of immunoreactive Pan-1/E47 but not Pan-2/E12, was observed concomitantly with the detection of Pan/E2A proteins. In addition to BCF1, other mu E5-binding species were detected which were not recognized by the Yae antibody. Two of these species were present in primary B-lymphocyte and myeloid cultures and were recognized by an anti-upstream stimulatory factor antiserum. Although Pan/E2A proteins have been proposed to be ubiquitous, Pan/E2A proteins were not detected in primary myeloid cultures composed mainly of granulocytes and macrophages or in the macrophage cell line J774. The absence of Pan/E2A proteins in differentiated myeloid cells correlated with low steady-state levels of Pan/E2A RNA. However, Pan/E2A proteins were present in a promyeloid cell line, 32DCL3, suggesting that extinction of Pan/E2A expression may play a role in myelopoiesis.


Blood ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 114 (22) ◽  
pp. 3455-3455
Author(s):  
Gabriela B. Iwanski ◽  
Nils Heinrich Thoennissen ◽  
PohYeen Lor ◽  
Norihiko Kawamata ◽  
Daniel Nowak ◽  
...  

Abstract Abstract 3455 Poster Board III-343 Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), one of the most common malignancies in childhood, is a heterogeneous disease with individual leukemia subtypes differing in their response to chemotherapy. Recent findings suggest that disruptions of B cell receptor (BCR) signalling pathways may be involved in the development of ALL. The transcription factor PAX5 is essential for the commitment of lymphoid progenitors to the B-lymphocytic lineage. In 30% of childhood B-ALL cases, PAX5 is a frequent target of aberrancies, showing monoallelic loss, point mutations, or chromosomal translocations, whereas the role of these aberrancies is still poorly understood. Using high resolution SNP-chip analysis, we have recently identified several candidate partner genes fused to PAX5 in pediatric ALL, ETV6 (TEL), FOXP1, AUTS2, C20orf112, which bind to PAX5 recognition sequences as strongly as wild-type PAX5 (wt PAX5) suppressing its transcriptional activity in a dominant-negative fashion. In order to study the role of PAX5/TEL in leukemic evolution of B-ALL, we transfected the leukemic BCP cell line Nalm 6, which endogenously expresses PAX5, with a retroviral vector encoding PAX5/TEL and confirmed its expression by Western blotting and RT-PCR. Previously, the fusion gene PAX5/TEL has been cloned into the retroviral vector pMSCV-IRES-GFP (MIGR) from a patient diagnosed with B-cell precursor ALL (BCP) with t(9;12)(q11;p13). This fusion product consists of the 5′-end NH2 terminal region of the PAX5 gene and the almost whole sequence of the TEL gene. PAX5/TEL-MIGR expressing cells were sorted for GFP and analyzed by gene expression profiling on Affymetrix HG-U133 plus 2.0 Array in comparison to cells transfected with vector control (MIGR) and a MIGR vector encoding wt PAX5 (wtPAX5/MIGR). The probes were normalized with the Affymetrix MAS5.0 software. Probes were considered to be differentially expressed with a fold change ≤ 2 or ≥ 2, respectively. We identified a set of about 200 genes that were differentially expressed in the PAX5/TEL expressing cells, most of which were downregulated, compared to the controls. A subset of these genes encodes proteins important for BCR signalling: RAG1, one of two key mediators in the process of V(D)J recombination, VPREB3, which is involved in the early phase of pre-BCR assembly, the Runt domain transcription factor Runx1 (AML1) and FOXP1. The latter two genes are fusion partners of PAX5 in pediatric B-ALL and loss of FOXP1 leads to impaired DH–JH and VH–DJH rearrangement. Additionally, we found BACH2, which plays an important role during B-cell development, as well as protein kinase C-epsilon (PKCe) to be downregulated. PKCe is highly expressed in B cells linking the BCR to the activation of mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPK). We confirmed the downregulation of the affected genes by RT-PCR. Strikingly, VPREB3 expression showed a significant downregulation of up to 170-fold, and RAG1 up to 90-fold. Loss of the RAG1/2 locus has been found in four precursor B-cell ALL cases, which indicates that defects in this process might contribute to leukemogenesis. We also detected a significant decrease in the expression of wt PAX5 as well as its direct downstream target CD79A (mb-1). CD79A (mb-1) encodes the B cell receptor component Ig-a and its early B cell-specific mb-1 promoter is a target for regulation by early B cell-specific transcription factors like E2A, early B cell factor (EBF), and PAX5. The latter is important for the activation of the mb-1 promoter by recruiting Ets proteins through protein-protein interactions. We investigated the binding efficiency of wt PAX5 to the promoter region of CD79A by chromatin-immunoprecipitation (ChIP). For the ChIP assay, we used a PAX5 antibody detecting the C-terminal region of PAX5 so that the antibody can bind the wt PAX5 but not the fusion product PAX5/TEL of which the C-terminal side is fused to TEL. Binding of wt PAX5 to the promoter region of CD79A was diminished by expression of the PAX5/TEL-fusion protein compared to the controls, leading to repression of CD79A, which we also confirmed by RT-PCR. In conclusion, we show that the expression of PAX5/TEL in a leukemic cell line has a repressor function on the expression of wt PAX5 as well as other genes important in BCR signalling. Also, we demonstrated that PAX5/TEL has a negative impact on the binding affinity of one of the direct downstream target genes of wt PAX5. Our results indicate a repressor role of the fusion gene PAX5/TEL including BCR signalling and point towards its contribution to leukemic transformation. Disclosures No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.


Blood ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 114 (22) ◽  
pp. 930-930
Author(s):  
Michael Hudecek ◽  
Thomas M Schmitt ◽  
Sivasubramanian Baskar ◽  
Wen-Chung Chang ◽  
David G Maloney ◽  
...  

Abstract Abstract 930 The orphan tyrosine kinase receptor ROR1 was previously identified as a highly expressed gene by expression profiling of B cell chronic lymphocytic leukemia (B-CLL), [Klein et al. J Exp Med 2001], and has subsequently been shown to be expressed on mantle cell lymphoma (MCL) and a subset of B cell acute lymphoblastic leukemias (B-ALL). ROR1 encodes a 105 kDa protein that contains Ig-like, cysteine rich, kringle, tyrosine kinase and proline rich domains and is expressed during embryonic development but is absent on normal adult tissues including non-malignant B cells. The function of ROR1 in normal and malignant cells is not known, although secreted Wnt proteins have been proposed as candidate ligands. Analysis of ROR1 protein expression using specific polyclonal antibodies revealed uniform, stable, and restricted cell surface expression on B-CLL, suggesting this molecule is a candidate for targeted immunotherapy of B cell malignancies [Baskar et al. Clin Cancer Res 2008]. We constructed a lentiviral vector that encodes a chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) consisting of single chain variable (scFV) fragments of the heavy and light chains of a murine monoclonal antibody specific for ROR1, linked to an IgG4 Fc domain, the T cell receptor CD3 zeta chain and a CD28 costimulatory domain. The specificity and function of the ROR1 CAR was compared with a similarly designed CAR specific for the CD20 molecule, which is expressed on both malignant and normal B cells, and is being targeted with gene-modified T cells in clinical trials. Primary human CD8+ T cells were transduced with the ROR1 and CD20-specific CARs respectively, and T cells expressing high levels of the receptors were sort-purified using an anti-Fc antibody. T cells that expressed either the ROR1-specific CAR or the CD20-specific CAR efficiently lysed primary B-CLL samples (5/5) obtained from patients with advanced disease, and also lysed a MCL cell line (JeKo-1), and a ROR1+ B-ALL cell line (BALL-1). ROR1-specific T cells did not recognize the myeloid leukemia cell line K562, but efficiently lysed K562 cells that had been transfected to express ROR1, confirming the specific recognition of ROR1 on target cells. Consistent with the expression pattern of the target molecules, T cells that expressed the CD20-specific CAR also efficiently lysed normal primary and EBV-transformed B cells, but T cells that expressed the ROR1-specific CAR did not recognize nonmalignant or EBV-transformed B cells. Activation of normal B cells by engagement of the B cell receptor or activation through CD40 induced B cell proliferation and upregulation of the CD80 and CD86 costimulatory molecules, but did not result in ROR1 surface expression by flow cytometry or recognition by T cells that expressed the ROR1-specific CAR. These results suggest that targeting ROR1 with gene-modified T cells may have advantages over targeting B cell-lineage restricted molecules such as CD19 and CD20 that are expressed on normal mature B cells. Studies to determine whether ROR1 is expressed during a stage of normal B cell development are in progress. ROR1 is highly conserved in non-human primates and this model may be suitable to determine potential toxicities of adoptive immunotherapy with ROR1-specific CAR expressing T cells. Disclosures: No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.


1998 ◽  
Vol 187 (5) ◽  
pp. 703-709 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ulla-Carin Tornberg ◽  
Ingela Bergqvist ◽  
Matthias Haury ◽  
Dan Holmberg

The development of B lymphocytes from progenitor cells is dependent on the expression of a pre–B cell–specific receptor made up by a μ heavy chain associated with the surrogate light chains, immunoglobulin (Ig)α, and Igβ. A variant pre–B cell receptor can be formed in which the μ heavy chain is exchanged for a truncated μ chain denoted Dμ. To investigate the role of this receptor in the development of B cells, we have generated transgenic mice that express the Dμ protein in cells of the B lineage. Analysis of these mice reveal that Dμ expression leads to a partial block in B cell development at the early pre–B cell stage, probably by inhibiting VH to DHJH rearrangement. Furthermore, we provide evidence that Dμ induces VL to JL rearrangements.


1994 ◽  
Vol 14 (6) ◽  
pp. 4087-4096
Author(s):  
Y Jacobs ◽  
X Q Xin ◽  
K Dorshkind ◽  
C Nelson

A newly developed rat long-term bone marrow culture system was used to study the role of Pan/E2A basic helix-loop-helix transcription factors during B-cell development. In this system, B-lymphocyte progenitors actively differentiate into mature B cells. Monoclonal (Yae) and polyclonal (anti-Pan) antibodies were employed to characterize the expression of Pan proteins by Western blot assay during hematopoiesis and to examine the components of immunoglobulin heavy-chain gene enhancer element-binding species by electrophoretic mobility shift assay. During B-cell development, the appearance of Pan/E2A proteins preceded the expression of immunoglobulin heavy-chain protein. A Pan-containing immunoglobulin heavy-chain enhancer element (mu E5)-binding species (BCF1), composed of immunoreactive Pan-1/E47 but not Pan-2/E12, was observed concomitantly with the detection of Pan/E2A proteins. In addition to BCF1, other mu E5-binding species were detected which were not recognized by the Yae antibody. Two of these species were present in primary B-lymphocyte and myeloid cultures and were recognized by an anti-upstream stimulatory factor antiserum. Although Pan/E2A proteins have been proposed to be ubiquitous, Pan/E2A proteins were not detected in primary myeloid cultures composed mainly of granulocytes and macrophages or in the macrophage cell line J774. The absence of Pan/E2A proteins in differentiated myeloid cells correlated with low steady-state levels of Pan/E2A RNA. However, Pan/E2A proteins were present in a promyeloid cell line, 32DCL3, suggesting that extinction of Pan/E2A expression may play a role in myelopoiesis.


1988 ◽  
Vol 8 (10) ◽  
pp. 4185-4189 ◽  
Author(s):  
J A Greenspan ◽  
F M Xu ◽  
R L Davidson

The molecular mechanisms of ethyl methanesulfonate-induced reversion in mammalian cells were studied by using as a target a gpt gene that was integrated chromosomally as part of a shuttle vector. Murine cells containing mutant gpt genes with single base changes were mutagenized with ethyl methanesulfonate, and revertant colonies were isolated. Ethyl methanesulfonate failed to increase the frequency of revertants for cell lines with mutant gpt genes carrying GC----AT transitions or AT----TA transversions, whereas it increased the frequency 50-fold to greater than 800-fold for cell lines with mutant gpt genes carrying AT----GC transitions and for one cell line with a GC----CG transversion. The gpt genes of 15 independent revertants derived from the ethyl methanesulfonate-revertible cell lines were recovered and sequenced. All revertants derived from cell lines with AT----GC transitions had mutated back to the wild-type gpt sequence via GC----AT transitions at their original sites of mutation. Five of six revertants derived from the cell line carrying a gpt gene with a GC----CG transversion had mutated via GC----AT transition at the site of the original mutation or at the adjacent base in the same triplet; these changes generated non-wild-type DNA sequences that code for non-wild-type amino acids that are apparently compatible with xanthine-guanine phosphoribosyltransferase activity. The sixth revertant had mutated via CG----GC transversion back to the wild-type sequence. The results of this study define certain amino acid substitutions in the xanthine-guanine phosphoribosyltransferase polypeptide that are compatible with enzyme activity. These results also establish mutagen-induced reversion analysis as a sensitive and specific assay for mutagenesis in mammalian cells.


Genome ◽  
1989 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 118-121 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthias R. Wabl ◽  
Hans-Martin Jäck ◽  
R. C. von Borstel ◽  
Charles M. Steinberg

The authors have developed a method to measure the rate of spontaneous mutations taking place in IgH, the gene encoding the immunoglobulin heavy chain. When an amber chain-termination codon mutates to a sense codon, translation of the polypeptide chain will be completed, and mutant cells producing the heavy chain can be detected with a fluorescent labelled antibody. The protocol used is the compartmentalization test which minimizes any effect of selection. In subclones of the pre-B lymphocyte line 18–81, the spontaneous mutation rate in the part of IgH encoding the variable region is somewhat greater than 10−5 mutations per base pair per generation. This supports the hypothesis that hypermutation is not dependent on cell stimulation by an antigen. In a hybrid between a cell of this line and a myeloma (which represents the terminal stage of the B-cell lineage), the mutation rate was too low to be determined by this test, less than 10−9. When the same loss to gain procedure system was used with an opal chain-terminating codon in the part of IgH encoding the constant region (Cμ), a high rate of reversion by deletion was found. Long (more than one exon) and short (less than one exon) deletions occurred at rates of 1.7 × 10−5 and 1.4 × 10−7 per generation, respectively. It is thought that the high rate of deletion is not related to somatic hypermutation but rather to DNA rearrangement during the heavy-chain class switch, which is occurring in these pre-B cell lines. The point mutation rate was too low to be detected above the background of deletion mutants, less than 5 × 10−8. The immunoglobulin mutator system works weakly, if at all, on two other, nonimmunoglobulin, genes tested: B2m (β2 microglobulin) and the gene for ouabain resistance.Key words: pre-B lymphocyte, B lymphocyte, spontaneous mutation rate, compartmentalization test, deletion mutation, hypermutation.


Blood ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 112 (12) ◽  
pp. 4665-4674 ◽  
Author(s):  
Livio Trentin ◽  
Martina Frasson ◽  
Arianna Donella-Deana ◽  
Federica Frezzato ◽  
Mario A. Pagano ◽  
...  

Abstract Lyn, a tyrosine kinase belonging to the Src family, plays a key role as a switch molecule that couples the B-cell receptor to downstream signaling. In B-CLL cells, Lyn is overexpressed, anomalously present in the cytosol, and displays a high constitutive activity, compared with normal B lymphocytes. The aim of this work was to gain insights into the molecular mechanisms underlying these aberrant properties of Lyn, which have already been demonstrated to be related to defective apoptosis in B-cell chronic lymphocytic leukemia (B-CLL) cells. Herein, Lyn is described to be in an active conformation as integral component of an aberrant cytosolic 600-kDa multiprotein complex in B-CLL cells, associated with several proteins, such as Hsp90 through its catalytic domain, and HS1 and SHP-1L through its SH3 domain. In particular, Hsp90 appears tightly bound to cytosolic Lyn (CL), thus stabilizing the aberrant complex and converting individual transient interactions into stable ones. We also demonstrate that treatment of B-CLL cells with geldanamycin, an Hsp90 inhibitor already reported to induce cell death, is capable of dissociating the CL complex in the early phases of apoptosis and thus inactivating CL itself. These data identify the CL complex as a potential target for therapy in B-CLL.


1987 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 450-457 ◽  
Author(s):  
E H Brown ◽  
M A Iqbal ◽  
S Stuart ◽  
K S Hatton ◽  
J Valinsky ◽  
...  

We measured the temporal order of replication of EcoRI segments from the murine immunoglobulin heavy-chain constant region (IgCH) gene cluster, including the joining (J) and diversity (D) loci and encompassing approximately 300 kilobases. The relative concentrations of EcoRI segments in bromouracil-labeled DNA that replicated during selected intervals of the S phase in Friend virus-transformed murine erythroleukemia (MEL) cells were measured. From these results, we calculated the nuclear DNA content (C value; the haploid DNA content of a cell in the G1 phase of the cell cycle) at the time each segment replicated during the S phase. We observed that IgCH genes replicate in the following order: alpha, epsilon, gamma 2a, gamma 2b, gamma 1, gamma 3, delta, and mu, followed by the J and D segments. The C value at which each segment replicates increased as a linear function of its distance from C alpha. The average rate of DNA replication in the IgCH gene cluster was determined from these data to be 1.7 to 1.9 kilobases/min, similar to the rate measured for mammalian replicons by autoradiography and electron microscopy (for a review, see H. J. Edenberg and J. A. Huberman, Annu. Rev. Genet. 9:245-284, 1975, and R. G. Martin, Adv. Cancer Res. 34:1-55, 1981). Similar results were obtained with other murine non-B cell lines, including a fibroblast cell line (L60T) and a hepatoma cell line (Hepa 1.6). In contrast, we observed that IgCh segments in a B-cell plasmacytoma (MPC11) and two Abelson murine leukemia virus-transformed pre-B cell lines (22D6 and 300-19O) replicated as early as (300-19P) or earlier than (MPC11 and 22D6) C alpha in MEL cells. Unlike MEL cells, however, all of the IgCH segments in a given B cell line replicated at very similar times during the S phase, so that a temporal directionality in the replication of the IgCH gene cluster was not apparent from these data. These results provide evidence that in murine non-B cells the IgCH, J, and D loci are part of a single replicon.


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