Regulation of the class II-associated invariant chain gene in normal and mutant B lymphocytes

C Doyle1, P J Ford, P D Ponath

  • 1Division of Tumor Virology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA 02115.

The invariant chain protein is intracellularly associated with class II major histocompatibility proteins. In many cases, the expression of these molecules appears to be regulated in a similar manner. Contained within the promoter of the invariant chain gene are sequences (X and I gamma 1) that are similar to the X and Y box elements of class II genes, suggesting that these sequences might be involved in its regulation. DNase I footprinting reveals additional cis-acting elements (I gamma 2 and I gamma 3) that contain sequence similarities to NF-kappa B and/or H2TF1/KBF1 recognition sequences. A series of fusion constructs with the chloramphenicol acetyltransferase reporter gene were used to analyze the role of these sequences (I gamma 1, I gamma 2, I gamma 3, and X and Y elements) in both normal and mutant B lymphocytes. These data suggest the likelihood of multiple X box proteins in B cells, which can act as both negative and positive regulatory factors.

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