Antibody repertoires of four- and five-feature translocus mice carrying human immunoglobulin heavy chain and kappa and lambda light chain yeast artificial chromosomes

We have produced mice that carry the human Ig heavy (IgH) and both kappa and lambda light chain transloci in a background in which the endogenous IgH and kappa loci have been inactivated. The B lymphocyte population in these translocus mice is restored to about one-third of normal levels, with preferential (3:1) expression of human lambda over human kappa. Human IgM is found in the serum at levels between 50 and 400 microg/ml and is elevated following immunization. This primary human Ab repertoire is sufficient to yield diverse Ag-specific responses as judged by analysis of mAbs. The use of DH and J segments is similar to that seen in human B cells, with an analogous pattern of N nucleotide insertion. Maturation of the response is accompanied by somatic hypermutation, which is particularly effective in the light chain transloci. These mice therefore allow the production of Ag-specific repertoires of both IgM,kappa and IgM,lambda Abs and should prove useful for the production of human mAbs for clinical use.

Cells strongly expressing Ig(kappa) transgenes show clonal recruitment of hypermutation: a role for both MAR and the enhancers

The V regions of immunoglobulin kappa transgenes are targets for hypermutation in germinal centre B cells. We show by use of modified transgenes that the recruitment of hypermutation is substantially impaired by deletion of the nuclear matrix attachment region (MAR) which flanks the intron-enhancer (Ei). Decreased mutation is also obtained if Ei, the core region of the kappa3'-enhancer (E3') or the E3'-flank are removed individually. A broad correlation between expression and mutation is indicated not only by the fact that the deletions affecting mutation also give reduced transgene expression, but especially by the finding that, within a single mouse, transgene mutation was considerably reduced in germinal centre B cells that poorly expressed the transgene as compared with strongly expressing cells. We also observed that the diminished mutation in transgenes carrying regulatory element deletions was manifested by an increased proportion of B cells in which the transgene had not been targeted at all for mutation rather than in the extent of mutation accumulation once targeted. Since mutations appear to be incorporated stepwise, the results point to a connection between transcription initiation and the clonal recruitment of hypermutation, with hypermutation being more fastidious than transcription in requiring the presence of a full complement of regulatory elements.

Modifying the sequence of an immunoglobulin V-gene alters the resulting pattern of hypermutation

Affinity maturation of antibodies requires localized hypermutation and antigen selection. Hypermutation is particularly active in certain regions (notably the CDRs of light and heavy chains) due to the local accumulation of hot spots. We have now analyzed the role of individual nucleotides in the origin of hot spots and show that mutability is largely defined by the nucleotide sequence. We compared the mutability profile of wild-type and modified kappa transgenes that contain silent mutations in the CDR1 segment. We found a new hot spot created at the third base of Ser-31 when its wild-type AGT codon was substituted by AGC. Two major hot spots associated with this AGC vanished when Ser-31 was encoded by the synonymous TCA. In addition to these, which were the most prominent changes, there were compensatory alterations in mutability of residues not directly related to the introduced silent mutations, so that the average hypermutation remained constant. Thus, mutations arising early in the immune response, even silent ones, could affect the mutability of critical residues and alter the pattern of affinity maturation. When analyzing hybridomas, we detected such alterations, but they seemed to better correlate with changes in average rather than local mutation rates. Overall, this paper shows how evolution could have optimized the mutability of individual residues to minimize deleterious mutations. Thus, the optimal strategy for affinity maturation may involve the incorporation of multiple point mutations before antigen selection of the relevant cells.

Targeting of non-Ig sequences in place of the V segment by somatic hypermutation

Affinity maturation of antibodies is characterized by localized hypermutation of the DNA around the V segment. Here we show, using mice containing single or multiple transgene constructs, that an immunoglobulin V kappa segment can be replaced by human beta-globin or prokaryotic neo or gpt genes without affecting the rate of hypermutation; the V gene itself is not necessary for recruiting hypermutation. The ability to target hypermutation to heterologous genes in vivo could find more general applications in biology.