Frequent occurrence of deletions and duplications during somatic hypermutation: Implications for oncogene translocations and heavy chain disease

Human naive and germinal center (GC) B cells were sorted by flow cytometry and rearranged VH region genes were amplified and sequenced from single cells. Whereas no deletions or insertions were found in naive B cells, approximately 4% of in-frame and >40% of out-of-frame rearrangements of GC B cells harbored deletions and/or insertions of variable length. The pattern of deletions/insertions and their restriction to mutated V genes strongly suggests that they result from somatic hypermutation. Deletions and insertions account for approximately 6% of somatic mutations introduced into rearranged VH region genes of GC B cells. These deletions/insertions seem to be the main cause for the generation of heavy chain disease proteins. Furthermore, it appears that several types of oncogene translocations (like c-myc translocations in Burkitt's lymphoma) occur as a byproduct of somatic hypermutation within the GC-and not during V(D)J recombination in the bone marrow as previously thought.