Immunoglobulins recognize foreign antigens and initiate immune responses such as phagocytosis and the complement system. Each immunoglobulin molecule consists of two identical heavy chains and two identical light chains. There are two classes of light chains, kappa and lambda. This region represents the germline organization of the lambda light chain locus. The locus includes V (variable), J (joining), and C (constant) segments. During B cell development, a recombination event at the DNA level joins a single V segment with a J segment; the C segment is later joined by splicing at the RNA level. Recombination of many different V segments with several J segments provides a wide range of antigen recognition. Additional diversity is attained by junctional diversity, resulting from the random additional of nucleotides by terminal deoxynucleotidyltransferase, and by somatic hypermutation, which occurs during B cell maturation in the spleen and lymph nodes. Several V segments and three C segments are known to be incapable of encoding a protein and are considered pseudogenes. The locus also includes several non-immunoglobulin genes, many of which are pseudogenes or are predicted by automated computational analysis or homology to other species.[1]
Genes
The immunoglobulin lambda locus contains the following genes:
Combriato G, Klobeck HG (1991). "V lambda and J lambda-C lambda gene segments of the human immunoglobulin lambda light chain locus are separated by 14 kb and rearrange by a deletion mechanism". Eur. J. Immunol. 21 (6): 1513–22. PMID1904362.
Vasicek TJ, Leder P (1990). "Structure and expression of the human immunoglobulin lambda genes". J. Exp. Med. 172 (2): 609–20. PMID2115572.
Emanuel BS, Cannizzaro LA, Magrath I; et al. (1985). "Chromosomal orientation of the lambda light chain locus: V lambda is proximal to C lambda in 22q11". Nucleic Acids Res. 13 (2): 381–7. PMID3923432.CS1 maint: Explicit use of et al. (link) CS1 maint: Multiple names: authors list (link)
Hieter PA, Korsmeyer SJ, Waldmann TA, Leder P (1981). "Human immunoglobulin kappa light-chain genes are deleted or rearranged in lambda-producing B cells". Nature. 290 (5805): 368–72. PMID6783958.CS1 maint: Multiple names: authors list (link)
Erikson J, Martinis J, Croce CM (1982). "Assignment of the genes for human lambda immunoglobulin chains to chromosome 22". Nature. 294 (5837): 173–5. PMID6795508.CS1 maint: Multiple names: authors list (link)
McBride OW, Hieter PA, Hollis GF; et al. (1982). "Chromosomal location of human kappa and lambda immunoglobulin light chain constant region genes". J. Exp. Med. 155 (5): 1480–90. PMID6802926.CS1 maint: Explicit use of et al. (link) CS1 maint: Multiple names: authors list (link)
Frippiat JP, Williams SC, Tomlinson IM; et al. (1995). "Organization of the human immunoglobulin lambda light-chain locus on chromosome 22q11.2". Hum. Mol. Genet. 4 (6): 983–91. PMID7655473.CS1 maint: Explicit use of et al. (link) CS1 maint: Multiple names: authors list (link)
Williams SC, Frippiat JP, Tomlinson IM; et al. (1997). "Sequence and evolution of the human germline V lambda repertoire". J. Mol. Biol. 264 (2): 220–32. doi:10.1006/jmbi.1996.0636. PMID8951372.CS1 maint: Explicit use of et al. (link) CS1 maint: Multiple names: authors list (link)
Kawasaki K, Minoshima S, Nakato E; et al. (1997). "One-megabase sequence analysis of the human immunoglobulin lambda gene locus". Genome Res. 7 (3): 250–61. PMID9074928.CS1 maint: Explicit use of et al. (link) CS1 maint: Multiple names: authors list (link)
Lefranc MP (2002). "Nomenclature of the human immunoglobulin lambda (IGL) genes". Exp. Clin. Immunogenet. 18 (4): 242–54. PMID11872955.
Strausberg RL, Feingold EA, Grouse LH; et al. (2003). "Generation and initial analysis of more than 15,000 full-length human and mouse cDNA sequences". Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 99 (26): 16899–903. doi:10.1073/pnas.242603899. PMID12477932.CS1 maint: Explicit use of et al. (link) CS1 maint: Multiple names: authors list (link)
Boursier L, Su W, Spencer J (2003). "Imprint of somatic hypermutation differs in human immunoglobulin heavy and lambda chain variable gene segments". Mol. Immunol. 39 (16): 1025–34. PMID12749909.CS1 maint: Multiple names: authors list (link)
Makino DL, Henschen-Edman AH, McPherson A (2006). "Four crystal forms of a Bence-Jones protein". Acta Crystallogr. Sect. F Struct. Biol. Cryst. Commun. 61 (Pt 1): 79–82. doi:10.1107/S1744309104028532. PMID16508097.CS1 maint: Multiple names: authors list (link)
Richl P, Stern U, Lipsky PE, Girschick HJ (2007). "The lambda gene immunoglobulin repertoire of human neonatal B cells". Mol. Immunol. 45 (2): 320–7. doi:10.1016/j.molimm.2007.06.155. PMID17675156.CS1 maint: Multiple names: authors list (link)