Summary The c-Myc HLH-bZIP protein has been implicated in physiological or pathological growth, proliferation, apoptosis, metabolism and differentiation at the cellular, tissue or organismal levels via regulation of numerous target genes. No principle yet unifies Myc action due partly to an incomplete inventory and functional accounting of Myc’s targets. To observe Myc target expression and function in a system where Myc is temporally and physiologically regulated, the transcriptomes and the genome-wide distributions of Myc, RNA polymerase II and chromatin modifications were compared during lymphocyte activation and in ES cells as well. A remarkably simple rule emerged from this quantitative analysis: Myc is not an on-off specifier of gene activity, but is a non-linear amplifier of expression, acting universally at active genes, except for immediate early genes that are strongly induced before Myc. This rule of Myc action explains the vast majority of Myc biology observed in literature.

Summary Chromosomal rearrangements, including translocations, require formation and joining of DNA double strand breaks (DSBs). These events disrupt the integrity of the genome and are frequently involved in producing leukemias, lymphomas and sarcomas. Despite the importance of these events, current understanding of their genesis is limited. To examine the origins of chromosomal rearrangements we developed Translocation Capture Sequencing (TC-Seq), a method to document chromosomal rearrangements genome-wide, in primary cells. We examined over 180,000 rearrangements obtained from 400 million B lymphocytes, revealing that proximity between DSBs, transcriptional activity and chromosome territories are key determinants of genome rearrangement. Specifically, rearrangements tend to occur in cis and to transcribed genes. Finally, we find that activation-induced cytidine deaminase (AID) induces the rearrangement of many genes found as translocation partners in mature B cell lymphoma.