Skip to main content
. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2017 Mar 3.
Published in final edited form as: Nat Rev Cancer. 2016 May 25;16(6):387–398. doi: 10.1038/nrc.2016.40

Figure 4. Timing of chromosomal translocations as a function of B-cell development.

Figure 4

The three long rectangles in the middle of the figure (labeled BCL6, AID, and RAG) depict expression levels. Breakpoint motif analysis suggests that most lymphoma translocations occur either in germinal center B-cells, when AID and BCL-6 are highly expressed, or in pro-B/pre-B cells, when the RAG complex is highly expressed and AID is expressed at low levels (see text). The Ig breaks in most Ig-MYC and Ig-BCL6 translocations are in SH regions, which contain hundreds of WGCW repeats, and the MYC and BCL6 breaks occur near WGCW motifs scattered throughout these partner loci (red text in figure). The Ig breaks in most pro-B/pre-B cell translocations are generated at JH and DH segments by the RAG complex as part of the V(D)J recombination process (blue text). Most CpG breaks occur at Ig partner loci in pro-B/pre-B cell translocations but also in a subset of non-Ig–BCL6 rearrangements that probably occur in germinal center B-cells (orange text)14, 15.