Differences in potential for amino acid change after mutation reveals distinct strategies for kappa and lambda light-chain variation.

B cells generate varied yet functional clones under high rates of mutation of their V genes. It has been proposed that as a result of the opposing demands of diversification and preservation of integrity, the V genes of heavy and light chains have evolved to overexpress codons prone to amino acid change in their complementarity determining regions (CDR) compared with the framework (FW) regions. We have analyzed the germ-line V genes of heavy and light chains (both kappa and lambda), comparing codons of CDR and FW of the germ-line V regions both to each other and to control regions. We found that in both germ-line heavy chains and lambda chains, CDR codons are prone to replacement mutations, whereas in the FW, the opposite is true. Furthermore, the difference between CDR and FW in heavy chains and lambda chains is based on codons that are prone to nonconservative changes of amino acid. In contrast, in germ-line kappa chains, the codons in both CDR and FW are more prone to replacement mutations. We also demonstrated that negative selection during immune responses is more sensitive to nonconservative amino acid substitutions than overall amino acid change, demonstrating the applicability of our analysis to real-time process of selection in the immune system. The differences in germ-line kappa and lambda light chains' potential reaction to mutation suggests that via these two differently evolved light-chain types, the B cell repertoire encompasses two different strategies to balance diversity and stability in an immune response.