Abstract
A DELETIONAL DNA rearrangement is associated with immunoglobulin class switching from IgM to IgG, IgA or IgE (reviewed in ref. 1). This recombination occurs in immunoglobulin switch regions, which are complex, highly repetitive regions of DNA. As switch regions become transcriptionally active2,3 just before switch recombination, analysis of the behaviour of these sequences during transcription could elucidate the mechanism of switch recombination. Here, we report that transcription of a supercoiled plasmid containing the murine IgA switch region (Sα)leads to a loss of superhelical turns. The resulting series of less supercoiled plasmids is stabilized by RNA-DNA hybrids formed by the nascent RNA transcripts, which remain base-paired with their DNA templates.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access options
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 51 print issues and online access
$199.00 per year
only $3.90 per issue
Buy this article
- Purchase on Springer Link
- Instant access to full article PDF
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Lutzker, S. G. & Alt, F. W. in Mobile DNA (eds Howe, M. M. & Berg, D. E.) (American Society for Microbiology, Washington DC, 1989).
Stavnezer, J. et al. Proc. natn. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 85, 7704–7708 (1988).
Lutzker, S., Rothman, P., Pollock, R., Coffman, R. & Alt, F. W. Cell 53, 177–184 (1988).
Stanton, L. W. & Marcu, K. B. Nucleic Acids Res. 10, 5993–6006 (1982).
Liu, L. F. & Wang, J. C. Proc. natn. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 84, 7024–7027 (1987).
Tsao, Y.-P., Wu, H.-Y. & Liu, L. F. Cell 56, 111–118 (1989).
Wu, H.-Y., Shyy, S., Wang, J. C. & Liu, L. F. Cell 53, 433–440 (1988).
Giaever, G. N. & Wang, J. C. Cell 55, 849–856 (1988).
Collier, D. A., Griffin, J. A. & Wells, R. D. J. biol. Chem. 263; 7397–7405 (1988).
Radcliffe, G., Lin, Y.-C., Julius, M., Marcu, K. B. & Stavnezer, J. Molec. cell. Biol. 10, 382–386 (1990).
Htun, H. & Dahlberg, J. E. Science 243, 1571–1576 (1989).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Reaban, M., Griffin, J. Induction of RNA-stabilized DMA conformers by transcription of an immunoglobulin switch region. Nature 348, 342–344 (1990). https://doi.org/10.1038/348342a0
Received:
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/348342a0
This article is cited by
-
Origin matters: spontaneous DNA–RNA hybrids do not form in trans as a source of genome instability
Current Genetics (2021)
-
Regulatory R-loops as facilitators of gene expression and genome stability
Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology (2020)
-
High-resolution, strand-specific R-loop mapping via S9.6-based DNA–RNA immunoprecipitation and high-throughput sequencing
Nature Protocols (2019)
-
The regulation and functions of the nuclear RNA exosome complex
Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology (2016)
-
Complexities due to single-stranded RNA during antibody detection of genomic rna:dna hybrids
BMC Research Notes (2015)
Comments
By submitting a comment you agree to abide by our Terms and Community Guidelines. If you find something abusive or that does not comply with our terms or guidelines please flag it as inappropriate.
