The contested role of uracil DNA glycosylase in immunoglobulin gene diversification

Simonne Longerich1, Ursula Storb

  • 1Department of Molecular Genetics and Cell Biology, Committee on Immunology, University of Chicago, IL 60637, USA.

Class switch recombination (CSR) and somatic hypermutation (SHM) of immunoglobulin (Ig) genes are initiated by the activation-induced cytosine deaminase AID. The resulting uracils in Ig genes were believed to be removed by the uracil glycosylase (UNG) and the resulting abasic sites treated in an error-prone fashion, creating breaks in the Ig switch regions and mutations in the variable regions. A recent report suggests that UNG does not act as a glycosylase in CSR and SHM but rather has unknown activity subsequent to DNA breaks that were created by other mechanisms.

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