Chromatin Loop Extrusion Plays a Fundamental Mechanistic Role in Antibody Class Switching [GRO-Seq]

In a B lymphocyte immunoglobulin heavy chain locus (IgH), a developmentally assembled V(D)J exon encoding an antibody variable region lies upstream of exons encoding a m constant region (Cm), allowing generation of m?IgH chain transcripts and IgM-class antibodies1. Mouse IgH class switch recombination (CSR) replaces Cm?with one of 6 sets of constant region exons (CHs) that lie 100-200kb downstream1. Each CH is flanked upstream by a promoter, non-coding I-exon, and long repetitive switch (S) region1,2. Cytokines/activators induce specific I-promoter transcription and activation-induced cytidine deaminase (AID)2,3. AID is transcriptionally-targeted to initiate DNA breaks in Sm and activated downstream acceptor S regions, which are joined in deletional orientation to complete CSR4,5. 3'IgH regulatory region (3'IgHRR) enhancers control upstream I promoters and, thereby, CSR via linear competition involving I promoter/3'IgHRR interactions6-11. Here, we report that synapsis of regulatory elements, S regions and DSBs for CSR is achieved by chromatin loop extrusion. In naive B cells, 3'IgHRR enhancers and adjacent 3'IgH CTCF-binding elements (CBEs) interact via loop extrusion with the upstream Igh intronic enhancer (iEm)/Sm locale to generate dynamic 200kb 3'Igh basal loop. In CSR-activated B cells, induced transcription from I-promoters within this basal loop generates dynamic sub-loops that directionally align Sm and target S regions near the 3'IgHRR for CSR. In CH12F3 B lymphoma cells, inactivation of the constitutively active Ia-promoter abrogates looping and CSR to Sa, while activating transcription, looping, and CSR to upstream S regions. CBEs inserted upstream of Ia in convergent orientation with 3'IgH CBEs generate sub-loops that activate inversional Sa CSR. In I?-promoter-deleted CH12F3 cells, this ectopic CBE-based sub-loop inactivates upstream S region CSR, while transcriptionally activating non-S region sequences adjacent to the inserted CBEs for S? synapsis and CSR. Together, our findings implicate chromatin loop extrusion in the “unprecedented mechanism”5 by which Igh organization in cis promotes orientation-specific CSR DSB joining. Overall design: We performed CSR-HTGTS-Seq, 3C-HTGTS, GRO-Seq and ChIP-Seq in mature splenic B cells with different stimulation and different mutants of CH12F3 cells to study roles of cohesin-mediated chromatin loop extrusion in IgH class switch recombination.