3'RR and 5'Eμ immunoglobulin heavy chain enhancers are independent engines of locus remodeling

Enhancing B-Cell Malignancies-On Repurposing Enhancer Activity towards Cancer

B-cell lymphomas and leukemias derive from B cells at various stages of maturation and are the 6th most common cancer-related cause of death. While the role of several oncogenes and tumor suppressors in the pathogenesis of B-cell neoplasms was established, recent research indicated the involvement of non-coding, regulatory sequences. Enhancers are DNA elements controlling gene expression in a cell type- and developmental stage-specific manner. They ensure proper differentiation and maturation of B cells, resulting in production of high affinity antibodies. However, the activity of enhancers can be redirected, setting B cells on the path towards cancer. In this review we discuss different mechanisms through which enhancers are exploited in malignant B cells, from the well-studied translocations juxtaposing oncogenes to immunoglobulin loci, through enhancer dysregulation by sequence variants and mutations, to enhancer hijacking by viruses. We also highlight the potential of therapeutic targeting of enhancers as a direction for future investigation.

Mechanism and regulation of class switch recombination by IgH transcriptional control elements

Class switch recombination (CSR) plays an important role in humoral immunity by generating antibodies with different effector functions. CSR to a particular antibody isotype is induced by external stimuli, and occurs between highly repetitive switch (S) sequences. CSR requires transcription across S regions, which generates long non-coding RNAs and secondary structures that promote accessibility of S sequences to activation-induced cytidine deaminase (AID). AID initiates DNA double-strand breaks (DSBs) intermediates that are repaired by general DNA repair pathways. Switch transcription is controlled by various regulatory elements, including enhancers and insulators. The current paradigm posits that transcriptional control of CSR involves long-range chromatin interactions between regulatory elements and chromatin loops-stabilizing factors, which promote alignment of partner S regions in a CSR centre (CSRC) and initiation of CSR. In this review, we focus on the role of IgH transcriptional control elements in CSR and the chromatin-based mechanisms underlying this control.

Mouse Models of c-myc Deregulation Driven by IgH Locus Enhancers as Models of B-Cell Lymphomagenesis

Chromosomal translocations linking various oncogenes to transcriptional enhancers of the immunoglobulin heavy chain (IgH) locus are often implicated as the cause of B-cell malignancies. Two major IgH transcriptional enhancers have been reported so far. The E_μ enhancer located upstream of the C_μ gene controls early events in B-cell maturation such as VDJ recombination. The 3' regulatory region (3'RR) located downstream from the C_α gene controls late events in B-cell maturation such as IgH transcription, somatic hypermutation, and class switch recombination. Convincing demonstrations of the essential contributions of both E_μ and 3'RR in B-cell lymphomagenesis have been provided by transgenic and knock-in animal models which bring the oncogene c-myc under E_μ/3'RR transcriptional control. This short review summarizes the different mouse models so far available and their interests/limitations for progress in our understanding of human c-myc-induced B-cell lymphomagenesis.

Concerted variation of the 3' regulatory region of Ig heavy chain and Gm haplotypes across human continental populations

OBJECTIVES

The 3' regulatory region of the immunoglobulin heavy chain gene (IGH) includes the HS1.2 enhancer displaying length polymorphism with four known variants. The goal of the research was to provide an overview of this variability and of its evolutionary significance across human populations.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

We compiled published and original data on HS1.2 polymorphism in 3,100 subjects from 26 human populations. Moreover, we imputed the haplotypic arrangement of the HS1.2 region in the 1000 Genomes Project (1KGP). In this dataset, imputation could also be obtained for the G1m-G3m allotype by virtue of the precise correspondence between serological types and amino acid (and DNA) substitutions in IGHG1 and IGHG3.

RESULTS

HS1.2 variant frequencies displayed similar patterns of continental partitioning as those reported in the literature for the physically neighboring IGHG1-IGHG3 system. The 1KGP data revealed that linkage disequilibrium (LD) can explain the spread of joint HS1.2-IGHG1-IGHG3 associations across continents and within continental populations, with stronger LD out of Africa and the features of an evolutionarily stable genomic block with differential expression in lymphoblastoid cell lines.

DISCUSSION

Strong population structuring involves at least the entire 70 kb genomic region here considered, due to the tight LD which maintained HS1.2, IGHG1, and IGHG3 in nonrandom arrangements. This might be key to better understand the evolutionary path of the entire genomic region driven by immune response capabilities, during the formation of continental gene pools.

Eμ and 3'RR transcriptional enhancers of the IgH locus cooperate to promote c-myc-induced mature B-cell lymphomas

Numerous B-cell lymphomas feature translocations linking oncogenes to different locations in the immunoglobulin heavy chain (IgH) locus. During Burkitt lymphoma (BL), IgH breakpoints for c-myc translocation stand either close to JH segments or within switch regions. Transcription, accessibility, and remodeling of the IgH locus are under the control of the 2 potent cis-acting enhancer elements: Eμ and the 3' regulatory region (3'RR). To ensure their respective contributions to oncogene deregulation in the context of the endogenous IgH locus, we studied transgenic mice harboring a knock-in of c-myc in various positions of the IgH locus (3' to JH segments, 5' to Cμ with Eμ deletion and Cα). The observed spectrum of tumors, kinetics of emergence, and transcriptome analysis provide strong evidence that both Eμ and 3'RR deregulate c-myc and cooperate together to promote B-cell lymphomagenesis. Transgenics mimicking endemic BL (with c-myc placed 3' to JH segments) exhibited the highest rate of B-cell lymphoma emergence, the highest Ki67 index of proliferation, and the highest transcriptomic similarities to human BL. The 3'RR enhancer alone deregulated c-myc and initiated the development of BL-like lymphomas, suggesting that its targeting would be of therapeutic interest to reduce c-myc oncogenicity in vivo.