The isolation of a human Ig V lambda gene from a recombinant library of chromosome 22 and estimation of its copy number.

We report the first isolation and characterisation of a human Ig V lambda gene. The gene was isolated from a recombinant phage library of human chromosome 22 using a mouse Ig lambda cDNA as probe. DNA sequence analysis predicts a short leader peptide interrupted by an intron of 88 nucleotides, and a mature polypeptide of 96-97 amino acids which shares 61% homology with mouse V lambda I chains. Comparison with the amino acid sequence of known human lambda chains of all six subgroups shows agreement at 22/25 low variance positions. However the maximum homology with human chains is 49%, so we conclude that this sequence represents a new IgV lambda subgroup. The coding region is followed by the conserved heptamer, CACAGTG, and nonamer, ACATAAACC, sequences which have been implicated in V-J segment recombination. This gene has the hallmarks of an active V lambda gene including recently identified transcriptional controlling sequences. Probing genomic DNA with the subcloned V lambda gene detects a family of about 10 cross hybridizing members at low stringency and 2 at high stringency. There is limited polymorphism of the V lambda locus.