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Updated: Sep 25, 2026

Analysis of Somatic Hypermutation in the JH4 intron of Germinal Center B cells from Mouse Peyer's Patches
Published on: April 20, 2021
A multistep mechanism for the activation of rearrangement in the immune system
Yanhong Ji1, Jianmin Zhang, Alfred Ian Lee
1Department of Experimental Medicine, Hebrew University Medical School, Jerusalem 91120, Israel.
Abstract:
Rearrangement of immune receptor loci is a developmentally controlled process that takes place exclusively in lymphoid cells. We have used a stable transfection system in pre-B cells to show that DNA methylation brings about histone underacetylation, histone H3(K9) methylation, DNaseI resistance, and strong inhibition of both transcription and recombination. Strikingly, this repression is maintained in dividing cells even after removal of the original methyl groups responsible for its establishment, but in this state, rearrangement can now be induced by reacetylation of local histones using the drug Trichostatin A. This same combination of demethylation and histone acetylation is also required to activate germline transcription and recombination from the endogenous kappa locus in vivo. These results indicate that the regulation of rearrangement is carried out by a multilayered synergistic process.
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