Rate of Replication of the Murine Immunoglobulin Heavy-Chain Locus: Evidence that the Region is Part of a Single Replicon

Abstract

We measured the temporal order of replication of EcoRI segments from the murine immunoglobulin heavy-chain constant region (IgC_H) gene cluster, including the joining (J) and diversity (D) loci and encompassing approximately 300 kilobases. The relative concentrations of EcoRI segments in bromouracil-labeled DNA that replicated during selected intervals of the S phase in Friend virus-transformed murine erythroleukemia (MEL) cells were measured. From these results, we calculated the nuclear DNA content (C value; the haploid DNA content of a cell in the G1 phase of the cell cycle) at the time each segment replicated during the S phase. We observed that IgC_H genes replicate in the following order: α, ε, γ 2a, γ 2b, γ 1, γ 3, δ, and μ, followed by the J and D segments. The C value at which each segment replicates increased as a linear function of its distance from Cα. The average rate of DNA replication in the IgC_H gene cluster was determined from these data to be 1.7 to 1.9 kilobases/min, similar to the rate measured for mammalian replicons by autoradiography and electron microscopy (for a review, see H. J. Edenberg and J. A. Huberman, Annu. Rev. Genet. 9:245-284, 1975, and R. G. Martin, Adv. Cancer Res. 34:1-55, 1981). Similar results were obtained with other murine non-B cell lines, including a fibroblast cell line (L60T) and a hepatoma cell line (Hepa 1.6). In contrast, we observed that IgCh segments in a B-cell plasmacytoma (MPC11) and two Abelson murine leukemia virus-transformed pre-B cell lines (22D6 and 300-19O) replicated as early as (300-19P) or earlier than (MPC11 and 22D6) Cα in MEL cells. Unlike MEL cells, however, all of the IgC_H segments in a given B cell line replicated at very similar times during the S phase, so that a temporal directionality in the replication of the IgC_H gene cluster was not apparent from these data. These results provide evidence that in murine non-B cells the IgC_H, J, and D loci are part of a single replicon.