Repeat Organization and Epigenetic Regulation of the DH-Cμ Domain of the Immunoglobulin Heavy-Chain Gene Locus

Tirtha Chakraborty, Dipanjan Chowdhury, Amanda Keyes, Anant Jani, Ramesh Subrahmanyam, Irina Ivanova, Ranjan Sen

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

60 Scopus citations

Abstract

The first steps of murine immunoglobulin heavy-chain (IgH) gene recombination take place within a chromosomal domain that contains diversity (DH) and joining (JH) gene segments, but not variable (VH) gene segments. Here we show that the chromatin state of this domain is markedly heterogeneous. Specifically, only 5′- and 3′-most DH gene segments carry active chromatin modifications, whereas intervening DHs are associated with heterochromatic marks that are maintained by ongoing histone deacetylation. The intervening DHs form part of a tandemly repeated sequence that expresses tissue-specific, antisense oriented transcripts. We propose that the intervening DH genes are actively suppressed by repeat-induced epigenetic silencing, which is reflected in their infrequent representation in DJH junctions compared to the flanking DH genes.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)842-850
Number of pages9
JournalMolecular Cell
Volume27
Issue number5
DOIs
StatePublished - Sep 7 2007
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • DNA

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Molecular Biology

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