Abstract
The methylation of immunoglobulin heavy chain genes was examined before and after class switching, by using the Hpa II/Msp I restriction mapping technique. The mu, delta, and gamma 1 genes all are methylated in cells that do not express them but are demethylated when they are expressed. In particular, the delta gene remains methylated, and thus presumably untranscribed, in a cell line that probably represents an early stage of B-cell differentiation and produces only mu heavy chains. Because mu and delta RNAs are cotranscribed from a single complex transcription unit at a later stage of B-cell differentiation, this finding implies that the mu-plus-delta complex transcription unit is of variable length.
Keywords
Immunoglobulin class switchingBiologyGeneDemethylationMethylationImmunoglobulin heavy chainTranscription (linguistics)Molecular biologyGeneticsAntibodyB cellGene expressionDNA methylation
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Publication Info
- Year
- 1981
- Type
- article
- Volume
- 78
- Issue
- 12
- Pages
- 7497-7501
- Citations
- 51
- Access
- Closed
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Cite This
John Rogers,
Randolph Wall
(1981).
Immunoglobulin heavy chain genes: demethylation accompanies class switching..
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
, 78
(12)
, 7497-7501.
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.78.12.7497
Identifiers
- DOI
- 10.1073/pnas.78.12.7497