Germ-line human epsilon heavy chain gene RNA transcripts utilize the full range of alternative 3' splicing seen in productive epsilon mRNA.

An early step in immunoglobulin isotype switching involves the initiation of active transcription of downstream heavy chain loci while they are still in germ-line configuration. This results in the production of 'sterile' germ-line RNA transcripts that do not contain VDJ sequences, the role of which in isotype switching is under intense scrutiny. We investigated whether such human epsilon germ-line transcripts employ the full complement of complex alternative 3' RNA splicing, splicing we have recently reported occurring with productive epsilon mRNA transcripts. Using a reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) strategy, in which the 5' primer was located in the I region of the epsilon gene, a region expressed in germ-line but not productive (VDJ containing) epsilon transcripts, we showed that the full range of alternative 3' epsilon splices occur with germ-line transcripts. These results demonstrate that epsilon 3' splicing events are independent of 5' isotype DNA switching. Additionally, we showed that, just as with mature epsilon mRNA, the relative production of the various epsilon germ-line mRNA isoforms was responsive to modulation by stimuli such as interleukin-10 (IL-10). Thus B cells, when stimulated to produce epsilon germ-line transcripts, generate a family of germ-line mRNA that differ not only in their initiation sites but, more importantly, also differ in their 3' sequences, sequences that could be important in regulation of the parent gene itself. Furthermore, by discontinuous or trans-splicing, cells could utilize these various epsilon germ-line transcripts to produce the full range of mature IgE proteins prior to undergoing deletional recombination of isotype switching.