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. 1982 Dec;79(24):7837–7841. doi: 10.1073/pnas.79.24.7837

Translocation of the c-myc gene into the immunoglobulin heavy chain locus in human Burkitt lymphoma and murine plasmacytoma cells.

R Taub, I Kirsch, C Morton, G Lenoir, D Swan, S Tronick, S Aaronson, P Leder
PMCID: PMC347444  PMID: 6818551

Abstract

The consistent appearance of specific chromosomal translocations in human Burkitt lymphomas and murine plasmacytomas has suggested that these translocations might play a role in malignant transformation. Here we show that transformation of these cells is frequently accompanied by the somatic rearrangement of a cellular analogue of an avian retrovirus transforming gene, c-myc. Moreover, we map c-myc to human chromosome 8 band q24, the chromosomal segment involved in the reciprocal Burkitt translocations [t(8;14), t(8;22) and t(2;8)]. In two t(8;14) human Burkitt cell lines, c-myc appears to have been translocated directly into a DNA restriction fragment that also encodes the immunoglobulin mu chain gene. In the case of a specific cloned fragment of DNA derived from a mouse plasmacytoma, we demonstrate directly that c-myc has been translocated into the immunoglobulin alpha switch region. Our data provide a molecular basis for considering the role that specific translocations might play in malignant transformation.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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