Negative regulation of Ig gene rearrangement by a 150-bp transcriptional silencer

✍ Scribed by Laurentiu Cocea; Auriel Dahan; Laurent Ferradini; Claude-Agnès Reynaud; Jean- Claude Weill

• Book ID: 101316021
• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1998
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 114 KB
• Volume: 28
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0014-2980
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1521-4141(199809)28:09<2809::aid-immu2809>3.0.co;2-c

✦ Synopsis

We previously showed that the V-J intervening sequence of the chicken lambda immunoglobulin locus contains a strong silencer that acts both on transcription and rearrangement. We show here that the transcriptional silencer activity can be ascribed to a minimal 150-bp fragment. The rearrangement silencing activity was previously shown by the replacement of the V-J intervening sequence with a neutral DNA fragment that dramatically increased the rate of rearrangement of the transgene. Insertion of the minimal silencer in this neutral fragment is shown here to result in a marked decrease in rearrangement of the transgenic construct. Strikingly, deletion of 28 bp from the 150-bp fragment abolished most of the transcriptional silencing activity and had a similar effect on rearrangement. These results conclusively correlate the silencing activity on both rearrangement and transcription.