Activation-induced cytidine deaminase induces reproducible DNA breaks at many non-Ig loci in activated B cells

After immunization or infection, activation-induced cytidine deaminase (AID) initiates diversification of immunoglobulin (Ig) genes in B cells, introducing mutations within the antigen binding V regions (somatic hypermutation, SHM) and double-strand DNA breaks (DSBs) into switch (S) regions, leading to antibody class switch recombination (CSR). Using a candidate approach, AID has been shown to initiate mutations at numerous non-Ig genes in B cells in Peyer’s patches. However, it is not known if during B cell activation, AID also induces DNA breaks at genes other than IgH genes, which would lead to genomic instability and malignancy. Using a non-biased genome-wide approach, we have identified hundreds of reproducible AID-dependent DSBs in mouse splenic B cells shortly after induction of CSR in culture. Most interestingly, AID induces DSBs at sites syntenic with sites of translocations, deletions, and amplifications found in human B cell lymphomas, including within the oncogene B cell lymphoma11a (bcl11a)/evi9. The AID-dependent DSBs are not restricted to transcribed regions, and they frequently occur within repeated sequence elements, including CA and non-CA repeats, and SINEs. Comparison of Nbs1 binding sites in wild-type vs. aid-/- splenic B cells induced to undergo CSR; aid-dependent Nbs1 sites correlated with gene transcription (RNA Pol2).