A procedure is described for the isolation of highly purified heavy-chain immunoglobulin mRNAs from a variety of mouse plasmacytomas (IgA, IgG, and IgM producers). The use of fresh tissue and the rapid isolation and direct extraction of membrane-bound polyribosomes were found to be essential in obtaining large quantities of undegraded heavy-chain mRNAs. The individual mRNAs were purified by two cycles of oligo(dT)-cellulose chromatography, sodium dodecyl sulfate--sucrose gradient centrifugation, and electrophoresis on 98% formamide containing polyacrylamide gels. When added to a cell-free protein-synthesizing system from wheat germ, the MPC-11 gamma2b and H2020 alpha heavy-chain mRNAs efficiently directed the synthesis of a predominant product of 55 000 molecular weight, while the synthesis of a 70 000 dalton protein in addition to other lower molecular weight polypeptides were observed with MOPC 3741 mu mRNA. All of these proteins were immunoprecipitable with class-specific heavy-chain antisera, and in the case of the gamma2b in vitro products good correspondence in a comparative trypsin--chymotrypsin fingerpring with in vivo labeled gamma2b heavy chain was observed. The gamma2b and a alpha heavy-chain mRNAs possessed a chain length of approximately 1800 nucleotides and the mu mRNA a size of approximately 2150 nucleotides when examined under stringent denaturation conditions. The purities of the alpha, gamma2b, and mu mRNAs were estimated to be 60--80%, 50--70%, and 50--83%, respectively, on the basis of their hybridization rates with cDNA probes in comparison to mRNA standards of known complexity. Heavy-chain mRNAs of the same class isolated from different mouse strains (Balb/C or NZB) display no detectable sequence differences in cross hybridization experiments, even though the cDNA--mRNA hybrids are submitted to stringent S1 nuclease digestion. These results indicate that allotypic determinants represent only a minor fraction of the heavy-chain constant region sequence in the mouse.

In plasmacytoma cells producing IgG, IgA, or IgM immunoglobulin heavy chains, the large precursors of the heavy chain messenger RNA's contain nucleotide sequences that specify only the expressed class of constant region. This indicates that the switch from one class of heavy chain to another during B cell ontogeny does not occur by altered processing of a complex gene transcript.

When P1798 murine lymphosarcoma cells are exposed to 10(-7) M dexamethasone, there is a dramatic inhibition of rRNA synthesis, which is completely reversible when the hormone is withdrawn. In the present experiments we examined whether dexamethasone treatment causes any alteration in the accumulation or utilization of mRNAs that encode ribosomal proteins (rp mRNAs). No effect on the accumulation of six different rp mRNAs was detected. However, the translation of five of six rp mRNAs was selectively inhibited in the presence of the hormone, as judged by a substantial decrease in ribosomal loading. Normal translation of rp mRNA was resumed within a few hours after hormone withdrawal. In untreated or fully recovered cells, the distribution of rp mRNAs between polyribosomes and free ribonucleoprotein is distinctly bimodal, suggesting that rp mRNAs are subject to a particular form of translational control in which they are either translationally inactive or fully loaded with ribosomes. A possible relationship between this mode of translational control and the selective suppression of rp mRNA translation by glucocorticoids is discussed.

The importance of intronic sequences for expression of the mouse ribosomal protein gene rpL32 was evaluated by transfection experiments with a series of mutant constructs in which one or more of the three rpL32 introns was totally or partially deleted. When transiently transfected into monkey kidney (COS) cells or stably transfected into mouse L cells, a mutant that lacked all three introns was completely inactive. Constructs that contained intron 1, either alone or in combination with another intron, were expressed as efficiently as was the normal intact rpL32 gene. Constructs that lacked intron 1 but contained another spliceable intron, even one from a foreign gene, were expressed at about 10 to 20% of the maximum level. These results indicated that intron 1 contains an element that increases the level of expression by 5- to 10-fold. A comparison of internal deletion mutants localized the element to within the first 27 base pairs of intron 1. Nuclear run-on experiments with stably transfected COS cells demonstrated that this element functions at the transcriptional level. The element was inactive when translocated to a position upstream of the transcriptional start site or to a position within intron 3, which indicated that it does not have the properties of a typical enhancer. From these and other results, we conclude that introns have both a general and a specific role in rpL32 expression. The general role, which can be satisfied by any spliceable intron, is to ensure an efficient yield of RNA transcripts. The specific role is uniquely attributable to intron 1, which contains a transcriptional regulatory element near its 5' end.