The temporal order of replication of murine immunoglobulin heavy chain constant region sequences corresponds to their linear order in the genome.

The time of replication during the S phase in a murine erythroleukemia (MEL) cell line was determined for immunoglobulin heavy chain constant region C alpha, C gamma 2b and C mu sequences whose boundaries are defined by EcoR1 restriction endonuclease sites (EcoR1 segments). Logarithmically growing cultures of MEL cells with an S phase of about 7.5 hours were pulse labelled with 20 micrograms/ml of 5-bromodeoxyuridine (BUdR). The cells were then fractionated by centrifugal elutriation into 10-12 distinct populations containing cells in different stages of the cell cycle. Flow microfluorimetric (FMF) analysis of DNA content, measurements of cell volume and autoradiography after 3H-thymidine pulse labelling were used to determine position in the cell cycle. Fractions were pooled to represent four selected intervals of S in which BU-DNA was synthesized for 2.5 hrs or less. Newly replicated DNA which had incorporated BUdR into one strand was isolated, cleaved with EcoR1, and separated on neutral Cs2S04 gradients. Equal amounts of BU-DNA replicated during these four intervals of S were electrophoresed in 0.8% agarose gels, transferred to diazotized aminobenzyloxymethyl paper and hybridized with 32p probes containing the C alpha, C gamma 2b and C mu genes and flanking sequences. The relative amounts of segments replicated were assessed by quantitation of the appropriate bands on the autoradiograms by microdensitometry. The results indicate that the 2.8 kb C alpha, 6.6 kb C gamma 2b and 12 kb C mu EcoR1 segments in these MEL cells replicated during defined intervals of the first half of the S phase. The order of replication of these EcoR1 segments as the cells proceeded through S was C alpha, C gamma 2b, C mu, corresponding to the linear order of the genes determined by restriction endonuclease mapping.