Regulation of lymphoid-specific immunoglobulin mu heavy chain gene enhancer by ETS-domain proteins.

The enhancer for the immunoglobulin mu heavy chain gene (IgH) activates a heterologous gene at the pre-B cell stage of B lymphocyte differentiation. A lymphoid-specific element, microB, is necessary for enhancer function in pre-B cells. A microB binding protein is encoded by the PU.1/Spi-1 proto-oncogene. Another sequence element, microA, was identified in the mu enhancer that binds the product of the ets-1 proto-oncogene. The microA motif was required for microB-dependent enhancer activity, which suggests that a minimal B cell-specific enhancer is composed of both the PU.1 and Ets-1 binding sites. Co-expression of both PU.1 and Ets-1 in nonlymphoid cells trans-activated reporter plasmids that contained the minimal mu enhancer. These results implicate two members of the Ets family in the activation of IgH gene expression.