Question

Your professor has mutated the promoter region for the cleavage stimulation factor CstF that causes this gene to be expressed in a ten -fold higher concentration. How would this impact antibody production?

Answer 1

Solution: Cleavage stimulation factor actively involves during a post transcriptional modification process called as polyadenylation. The specialized polymerase poly A- polymerase actively adds poly adenine residue to the tail of nascent mRNA which inturn provides stability and also helps during the translation of that mRNA into proteins. The poly A- polymerase requires the help of additional factors for this process. The CstF is one such protein that actively helps the poly A- polymerase. The over expression of CstF enhances the rate of polyadenylation of antibodies and thereby their production. For example, upregulated CstF protein, specifically CstF-64 influences the process of B cell differentiation. Overexpression of CstF-64 in a B cell line increases the concentration of intact CstF and reproduces the shift in IgM pre-mRNA processing that naturally occurs during differentiation.