Regulation of immunoglobulin gene rearrangement and expression

The molecular genetic events leading to Ig expression and their control formed the topic of a recent EMBO workshop. This report by Michael Taussig, Martin Sims and Ulrich Krawinkel discusses contributions dealing with genes expressed in early pre-B cells, the mechanism of rearrangement, aberrant rearrangements seen in B cells of SCID mice, the feedback control of rearrangement as studied in transgenic mice, the control of Ig expression at the transcriptional and post-transcriptional levels, and class switching.