Significant progress has recently been made in our understanding of how transcription factors such as PU.1, Notch1, E2A, EBF, Pax5, Bcl6, Blimp1 and XBP1 control different developmental decisions during the onset and terminal phase of B-lymphopoiesis. One emerging theme is that negative regulatory networks play an important role in suppressing alternative gene programs and their corresponding cell fates throughout B-cell development.

The developmental progression from pro-B to pre-B cells is controlled by pre-B cell receptor (pre-BCR) signaling which depends on BLNK (SLP-65) for coupling the Syk kinase to its downstream effector pathways. Here we identified BLNK as a direct target of the transcription factor Pax5 (BSAP). Restoration of BLNK expression in Igμ transgenic Pax5−/− pro-B cells resulted in constitutive pre-BCR signaling and increased cell proliferation without inducing progression to the pre-B cell stage. Igμ+ Pax5−/− pro-B cells expressing a BLNK-estrogen receptor fusion protein initiated signaling immediately upon hormone addition, which facilitated analysis of pre-BCR-induced gene expression changes. The pre-BCR was shown to execute its checkpoint function by regulating genes involved in cell proliferation, intracellular signaling, growth factor responsiveness, and V(D)J recombination.

The B lineage commitment factor Pax5 (BSAP) is exclusively expressed in B lymphocytes of the blood system. To study the effect of Pax5 on the development of other hematopoietic lineages, we generated a heterozygous knockin mouse carrying a Pax5 minigene under the control of the Ikaros locus. Conditional and constitutive activation of the IkPax5 allele demonstrated that precocious Pax5 expression in hematopoietic stem cells and progenitors failed to interfere with myeloid development and only weakly affected erythroblast formation. Instead, pan-hematopoietic Pax5 expression strongly promoted B cell development at the expense of T lymphopoiesis. Pax5 thereby interfered with T lineage commitment and early thymocyte development by repressing the transcription of the T cell specification gene Notch1.

The PAX-5 gene codes for the transcription factor BSAP, which is expressed throughout B-cell development. Although loss-of-function mutation in the mouse showed an essential role forPax-5 in early B lymphopoiesis, gain-of-function mutations have implicated the human PAX-5 gene in the control of late B-cell differentiation. PAX-5 (on 9p13) has been involved together with the immunoglobulin heavy-chain (IgH) gene (on 14q32) in the recurring t(9;14)(p13;q32) translocation that is characteristic of small lymphocytic lymphoma with plasmacytoid differentiation. Here we have characterized a complex t(2;9;14)(p12;p13;q32) translocation present in a closely related non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma referred to as splenic marginal zone lymphoma (MZL). In this MZL-1 translocation, the two promoters of PAX-5 were replaced on the derivative chromosome 14 by an immunoglobulin switch Sμ promoter that was linked to the structural PAX-5 gene upstream of its translation initiation codon in exon 1B. Expression analyses confirmed thatPAX-5 transcription was upregulated due to efficient initiation at the Sμ promoter in the malignant B lymphocytes of patient MZL-1. For comparison we have analyzed PAX-5 expression in another B-cell lymphoma, KIS-1, indicating that transcription from the distalPAX-5 promoter was increased in this tumor in agreement with the previously characterized translocation of the immunoglobulin Eμ enhancer adjacent to PAX-5 exon 1A. In both lymphomas, the J-chain gene, which is thought to be under negative control by BSAP, was not expressed, whereas transcription of the putative target genep53 was unaffected by PAX-5 overexpression. Together these data indicate that the t(9;14)(p13;q32) translocation contributes to lymphoma formation as a regulatory mutation that leads to increasedPAX-5 expression in late B-cell differentiation due to promoter replacement or enhancer insertion.

It has previously been shown that interaction of eukaryotic initiation factor 5A (eIF-5A) with the Rev trans-activator protein of HIV-1 mediates the transport of unspliced or incompletely spliced viral mRNAs across the nuclear envelope. Consequently, mutants of eIF-5A block Rev function and thereby replication of HIV-1 in trans, indicating that eIF-5A is a crucial protein that connects the viral Rev regulator with cellular RNA transport systems. Here we show that the ribosomal protein L5, which is the central protein component of the 5S rRNA export system, is a cellular interaction partner of eIF-5A. Functional studies demonstrate that overexpression of L5 protein significantly enhances Rev activity. Furthermore, Rev nuclear export activity is inhibited in human somatic cells by antibodies that recognize eIF-5A or L5. Our data suggest that the Rev export pathway shares components of a cellular transport system involved in the intracellular trafficking of polymerase III (5S rRNA) transcripts.