Structural analysis of both products of a reciprocal translocation between c-myc and immunoglobulin loci in Burkitt lymphoma.

The balanced translocations that occur between the c-myc and immunoglobulin loci in Burkitt lymphoma provide an unusual opportunity to analyze both products of a reciprocal recombination. Accordingly, we have determined the structure of the two reciprocal products of a translocation that joins the 5' portion of the c-myc gene on chromosome 8 to the immunoglobulin mu switch recombination signal on chromosome 14. By determining the nucleotide sequences at the translocation crossover points of both product chromosomes, we precisely locate these points with respect to nearby genes. This determination allows us to conclude that translocation involves nonhomologous recombination, is highly conservative of c-myc sequences (deleting only 16 bp at the crossover point), but deletes over 2 Kb of immunoglobulin sequences from the mu switch signal. The mu constant and c-myc genes are joined head-to-head about 3 Kb apart, while the IgH enhancer and an aberrantly rearranged D/J region are linked to sequences 5' of c-myc on the reciprocal product.