Pre-B-cells transformed by ts Abelson virus rearrange kappa and lambda [correction of gamma] genes in early G1.

Abstract

Abelson murine leukemia virus (Ab-MLV) induces a rapidly progressive, invariably fatal lymphoma in mice and transforms pre-B lymphocytes in vitro (reviewed in Rosenberg and Witte 1988). Like normal pre-B cells, the transformants have undergone V(D)J joining at the immunoglobulin heavy chain locus but most of them have not recombined the κ or λ light chain genes. Consistent with this pattern, the cells express a constellation of differentiation markers normally associated with pre-B lymphocytes. These phenotypic properties have always suggested that Ab-MLV transformation arrests B lymphocyte differentiation at the pre-B cell stage. Recent work using temperature sensitive (ts) Ab-MLV transformation mutants has confirmed this hypothesis (Chen et al. 1994). Pre-B cells transformed by ts mutants undergo light chain gene rearrangement at a high frequency after shift to the nonpermissive temperature. Differentiation arrest is mediated in part by the ability of the virus to suppress the expression of molecules that are critically important for pre-B cell differentiation. The RAG-1 and RAG-2 proteins and NF-κB are two of these targets (Chen et al. 1994; Klug et al. 1994).KeywordsPermissive TemperatureNonpermissive TemperatureLight Chain GeneProtein Tyrosine Kinase ActivityDifferentiation ArrestThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.