Elements regulating somatic hypermutation of an immunoglobulin kappa gene: critical role for the intron enhancer/matrix attachment region.

Following encounter with antigen, the immunoglobulin genes in B lymphocytes undergo somatic hypermutation. Most nucleotide substitutions are introduced into a region flanked by the V gene promoter and intron enhancer. Experiments described here using transgenic mice revealed that the V kappa promoter does not contain specific signals since hypermutation was retained on substituting it by a beta-globin promoter. However, both the kappa intron and kappa 3' enhancer regions were found to be essential for full hypermutation. This dependence of hypermutation on both enhancers contrasts with transgene expression in hybridomas in which only the 3' enhancer (and not the intron enhancer) is necessary to achieve high mRNA levels. The results show that full hypermutation depends on multiple elements, removal of some of which may drastically impair but not totally abolish the process.