The EMBO Journal Vol. 21 No. 19 pp. 5255±5261, 2002 Differential accessibility at the k chain locus plays a role in allelic exclusion Maya Goldmit1, Mark Schlissel2, known how this chromosomal mark enables the initial Howard Cedar1 and Yehudit Bergman3,4 selection of only one allele, the process itself must be 3 mediated through monoallelic epigenetic changes. The Hubert H.Humphrey Center for Experimental Medicine and There is a great deal of evidence suggesting that Cancer Research, 1Department of Cellular Biochemistry and Human Genetics, The Hebrew University Hadassah Medical School, rearrangement, in general, is controlled by chromatin Jerusalem 91120, Israel and 2Division of Immunology, Department of accessibility (for reviews, see Roth and Roth, 2000; Molecular and Cell Biology, University of California, Berkeley, Schlissel, 2000; Krangel, 2001). Even though all lymphoid CA 94720-3200, USA recombination events are mediated by Rag proteins 4Corresponding author operating on canonical recombination signal sequences e-mail:
[email protected] (RSSs), the m, k and l loci undergo rearrangement only in B cells, while TCRa and b become rearranged speci®cally Gene rearrangement in the immune system is always in T cells (for a review, see Lewis, 1994). Accessibility preceded by DNA demethylation and increased chro- presumably controls the timing of rearrangement as well, matin accessibility. Using a model system in which since the m locus almost always gets activated prior to rearrangement of the endogenous immunoglobulin k during B cell development. In keeping with this, it has k locus is prevented, we demonstrate that these epi- been shown for some of the receptor loci that rearrange- genetic and chromatin changes actually occur on one ment is preceded by an increase in chromatin accessibility allele with a higher probability than the other.