Translocation of the c-myc gene into the immunoglobulin heavy chain locus in human Burkitt lymphoma and murine plasmacytoma cells

The consistent appearance of specific chromosomal translocations in human Burkitt lymphomas and murine plasmacytomas has suggested that these translocations might play a role in malignant transformation. Here we show that transformation of these cells is frequently accompanied by the somatic rearrangement of a cellular analogue of an avian retrovirus transforming gene, c-myc. Moreover, we map c-myc to human chromosome 8 band q24, the chromosomal segment involved in the reciprocal Burkitt translocations [t(8;14), t(8;22), and t(2;8)]. In two t(8;14) human Burkitt cell lines, c-myc appears to have been translocated directly into a DNA restriction fragment that also encodes the immunoglobulin μ chain gene. In the case of a specific cloned fragment of DNA derived from a mouse plasmacytoma, we demonstrate directly that c-myc has been translocated into the immunoglobulin α switch region. Our data provide a molecular basis for considering the role that specific translocations might play in malignant transformation.