miR290-5p/292-5p activate the immunoglobulin kappa locus in B cell development

Regulated expression of miRNAs influences development in a wide variety of contexts. We report here that miR290-5p (100049710) and miR292-5p (100049711) are induced at the pre-B stage of murine B cell development and that they influence assembly of the Igκ light chain gene (243469) by contributing to the activation of germline Igκ transcription (κGT). We found that upon forced over-expression of miR290-5p/292-5p in Abelson Murine Leukemia Virus (AMuLV) transformed pro-B cells, two known activators of κGT, E2A (21423) and NF-κB (19697), show increased chromosomal binding to the kappa intronic enhancer. Conversely, knockdown of miR290-5p/292-5p in AMuLV pro-B cells blunts drug-induced activation of κGT. Furthermore, miR290-5p/292-5p knockdown also diminishes κGT activation, but not Rag1/2 (19373, 19374) expression, in an IL-7 dependent primary pro-B cell culture system. In addition, we identified a deficiency in κGT induction in miR290 cluster knockout mice. We hypothesize that increased expression of miR290-5p and miR292-5p contributes to the induction of κGT at the pre-B stage of B cell development through increased binding of NF-κB and E2A to kappa locus regulatory sequences.