Novel AID target loci sharing unique features with immunoglobulin genes

Activation-induced cytidine deaminase (AID) is required for both somatic hypermutation (SHM) and class switch recombination (CSR) in activated B cells. It is also known that AID targets non-immunoglobulin genes, and introduces mutations or chromosomal translocations, eventually causing tumors. In order to identify as-yet unknown unidentified AID targets, we screened early AID-induced DNA breaks by applying two independent genome-wide approaches. We identified a set of novel genes along with known AID targets and confirmed that those new loci accumulated mutations after AID activation. Moreover, these genes share two important characteristics with the immunoglobulin gene; repetitive sequences in the vicinity of cleavage sites and epigenetic modification of chromatin by H3K4 trimethylation. none provided