Article abstract


Nature Immunology 9, 927 - 936 (2008)
Published online: 22 June 2008 | doi:10.1038/ni.1626

Regulation of B cell fate commitment and immunoglobulin heavy-chain gene rearrangements by Ikaros

Damien Reynaud1,2, Ignacio A Demarco2, Karen L Reddy2, Hilde Schjerven3, Eric Bertolino2, Zhengshan Chen2, Stephen T Smale3, Susan Winandy4 & Harinder Singh1,2


The transcription factor Ikaros is essential for B cell development. However, its molecular functions in B cell fate specification and commitment have remained elusive. We show here that the transcription factor EBF restored the generation of CD19+ pro–B cells from Ikaros-deficient hematopoietic progenitors. Notably, these pro–B cells, despite having normal expression of the transcription factors EBF and Pax5, were not committed to the B cell fate. They also failed to recombine variable gene segments at the immunoglobulin heavy-chain locus. Ikaros promoted heavy-chain gene rearrangements by inducing expression of the recombination-activating genes as well as by controlling accessibility of the variable gene segments and compaction of the immunoglobulin heavy-chain locus. Thus, Ikaros is an obligate component of a network that regulates B cell fate commitment and immunoglobulin heavy-chain gene recombination.

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  1. Howard Hughes Medical Institute, The University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60637, USA.
  2. Department of Molecular Genetics and Cell Biology, The University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60637, USA.
  3. Department of Microbiology, Immunology, and Molecular Genetics, David Geffen School of Medicine at The University of California at Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California 90095, USA.
  4. Department of Microbiology-Immunology, Feinberg School of Medicine Northwestern University, Chicago, Illinois 60611, USA.

Correspondence to: Harinder Singh1,2 e-mail: hsingh@uchicago.edu



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