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Updated: Jul 6, 2026

Anti-Nuclear Antibody Screening Using HEp-2 Cells
Published on: June 23, 2014
Subnuclear compartmentalization of immunoglobulin loci during lymphocyte development
Steven T Kosak1, Jane A Skok, Kay L Medina
1Department of Molecular Genetics and Cell Biology, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, USA.
Abstract:
Immunoglobulin (Ig) loci are selectively activated for transcription and rearrangement during B lymphocyte development. Using fluorescence in situ hybridization, we show that Ig heavy (H) and Igkappa loci are preferentially positioned at the nuclear periphery in hematopoietic progenitors and pro-T cells but are centrally configured in pro-B nuclei. The inactive loci at the periphery do not associate with centromeric heterochromatin. Upon localization away from the nuclear periphery in pro-B cells, the IgH locus appears to undergo large-scale compaction. We suggest that subnuclear positioning represents a novel means of regulating transcription and recombination of IgH and Igkappa loci during lymphocyte development.
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