A monoclonal antibody (K-1-21) raised against a kappa Bence Jones protein exhibits unique binding properties to malignant plasma cells. K-1-21 is an IgG1 kappa antibody that reacts with human kappa light chains in free form, but shows no reactivity with heavy chain-associated kappa light chains. By immunofluorescence, K-1-21 binds to the surface of LICR LON/HMy2 (HMy2) kappa myeloma cells and t...

The immunoglobulin kappa light chain is constitutively secreted in non-polarised cells. It is therefore unlikely to display any of the signals thought to be required for the selective delivery of proteins to the apical or basolateral borders of polarised epithelial cells. We have transfected the gene for the kappa light chain into a polarised epithelial cell line (Caco-2) and shown that it is s...

A combinatorial human immunoglobulin gene library was constructed from peripheral lymphocytes of an asymptomatic Entamoeba histolytica cyst passer and screened for the production of Fab antibody to the parasite. One of the Fab clones, CP33, recognized the 260-kDa galactose- and N-acetyl-D-galactosamine (Gal/GalNAc)-specific lectin of E. histolytica. By shuffling the heavy and light chains of CP...

T cell tolerance is established and maintained through various mechanisms, the critical component being the persistence of the specific Ag. However, at the molecular level, the nature of the recovering TCR repertoire following breakdown of tolerance is unknown. We address this important question by following kappa light chain constant region (C kappa)-specific CD4+ T cells of kappa light chain ...

The generation of VH81X heavy chain lambda-light chain-expressing B cells (VH81X-lambda+ B cells) was studied in VH81X heavy chain transgenic mice as well as in VH81X JH (-/-) and VH81X JH (-/-) Ck (-/-) mice, in which competition resulting from expression of heavy and light chains from the endogenous heavy and kappa light chain loci was prevented. We show that although lambda light chain gene ...

Protein L is a bacterial surface protein with 4-5 immunoglobulin (Ig)-binding domains (B1-B5), each of which appears to have two binding sites for Ig, corresponding to the two edges of its beta-sheet. To verify these sites biochemically and to probe their relative contributions to the protein L-Ig kappa light chain (kappa) interaction, we compared the binding of PLW (the Y47W mutant of the B1 d...

The full-length gene that encodes the light chain variable regions of an idiotypically related group of human IgM kappa rheumatoid factors (RFs) has been cloned and sequenced. The deduced amino acid sequence is identical to four separate RF proteins. These results prove that genes capable of encoding human anti-IgG autoantibody light chains without any somatic mutation are present in the kappa ...

BACKGROUND Plasma cell cheilitis is an unusual benign plasma cell proliferative disease of an unknown etiology that typically presents on the lip. OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to investigate the clinicopathological characteristics of 13 cases of plasma cell cheilitis. METHODS The present study investigated the clinical manifestations, treatment modalities, and outcome of 13 patients ...

The time of emergence of immunoglobulin kappa and lambda light (L) chains in evolution is unknown. An L chain cDNA clone was isolated from the nurse shark (Ginglymostoma cirratum), a cartilaginous fish, whose predicted variable (V) region amino acid sequence has up to 60% sequence identity to mammalian V kappa domains. Genomic analyses suggest a cluster-type gene organization for this L chain l...

Of 94 hairy cell leukemia (HCL) patients studied for immunologic phenotype of their hairy cells, 89 patients had B cell markers and five patients were both surface immunoglobulin (slg) negative and E rosette negative. Forty of the 77 cases that had the heavy chains individually determined had IgG only (52.0%); 23 others had IgG in addition to other Ig heavy chains. Seventy-nine patients had mon...