Open AccessNonproductive kappa immunoglobulin genes: recombinational abnormalities and other lesions affecting transcription, RNA processing, turnover, and translation.
Author(s) -
Dawn E. Kelley,
Leanne M. Wiedemann,
Anne-Cécile Pittet,
Steven H. Strauss,
Kathleen J. Nelson,
Julian Davis,
B Van Ness,
Robert P. Perry
Publication year - 1985
Publication title -
molecular and cellular biology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.14
H-Index - 327
eISSN - 1067-8824
pISSN - 0270-7306
DOI - 10.1128/mcb.5.7.1660
Subject(s) - biology , enhancer , gene , genetics , transcription (linguistics) , kappa , locus (genetics) , promoter , allele , rna , microbiology and biotechnology , transcription factor , gene expression , linguistics , philosophy
Six nonproductive kappa immunoglobulin genes (kappa- alleles) were cloned and sequenced. The structural abnormalities discerned from sequence analysis were correlated with functional lesions at the level of transcription, RNA processing, turnover, and translation. Four kappa- alleles, three containing V kappa genes and one not, are transcribed at normal or even greater than normal rates, the defects in these genes being expressed at various posttranscriptional levels. The other two kappa- alleles, both of which lacked V genes, exhibited greatly depressed yet clearly detectable transcriptional activity. These results are consistent with a hierarchical relationship between enhancer and promoter elements in which the enhancer establishes transcriptional competence at the kappa locus and the promoter (or pseudopromoter) determines the relative level of transcriptional activity. One of the structural abnormalities discovered in this study, a large deletion which removes the entire J kappa region, also provides new insight into the mechanism of VJ and VDJ recombination.