Rat c-myc oncogene is located on chromosome 7 and rearranges in immunocytomas with t(6:7) chromosomal translocation

Two B-cell-derived tumours, human Burkitt's lymphoma (BL) and murine plasmacytoma (MPC), are regularly associated with a distinctive form of chromosomal translocation (for reviews see refs 1, 2). In BL, the distal portion of chromosome 8 breaks off and is transposed, in most cases, to chromosome 14, known to carry the immunoglobulin heavy-chain locus³. In about 5% of the cases the same distal part of the chromosome 8 has moved to either chromosome 2 or 22, to the neighbourhood of the κ or the λ locus, respectively^4,5. In MFC the distal region of chromosome 15 is transposed to the chromosome 12, known to carry the immunoglobulin heavy-chain locus⁶, or enters into reciprocal exchange with the κ locus-carrying chromosome 6 (ref. 7). Several laboratories have located c-myc, the cellular homologue of the MC29 retro viral oncogene v-myc, to human chromosome 8 (refs 8-10) and mouse chromosome 15 (refs 11-13). It has also been shown that the BL- and MFC-associated translocations remove the c-myc gene from its original site and transpose it into or close to one of the immunoglobulin gene clusters^8,14-16. In view of the above findings we also looked for possible involvement of the c-myc gene in a B-cell-derived tumour of a third species, the rat. Rat immunocytomas of spontaneous origin carry a reciprocal translocation between chromosomes 6 and 7 (ref. 17). Here we have localized the c-myc locus to chromosome 7 of the rat. Moreover, we have found that the c-myc gene was rearranged in four of five immunocytomas carrying the characteristic chromosomal translocation.