Mouse Models of c-myc Deregulation Driven by IgH Locus Enhancers as Models of B-Cell Lymphomagenesis

Chromosomal translocations linking various oncogenes to transcriptional enhancers of the immunoglobulin heavy chain (IgH) locus are often implicated as the cause of B-cell malignancies. Two major IgH transcriptional enhancers have been reported so far. The E(μ) enhancer located upstream of the C(μ) gene controls early events in B-cell maturation such as VDJ recombination. The 3' regulatory region (3'RR) located downstream from the C(α) gene controls late events in B-cell maturation such as IgH transcription, somatic hypermutation, and class switch recombination. Convincing demonstrations of the essential contributions of both E(μ) and 3'RR in B-cell lymphomagenesis have been provided by transgenic and knock-in animal models which bring the oncogene c-myc under E(μ)/3'RR transcriptional control. This short review summarizes the different mouse models so far available and their interests/limitations for progress in our understanding of human c-myc-induced B-cell lymphomagenesis.