Mutations affecting immunoglobulin light chain secretion by myeloma cells. I. Functional analysis by cell fusion.

Two clones of MOPC 315 cells have been selected which synthesize but do not secrete Ig lambda light chains. These clones were analyzed by fusion with a cell line synthesizing and secreting kappa chains. Conditions were established for recovery at high frequency (approximately 10(-3)) of spontaneously fused, viable hybrid cells. The resulting hybrid cell lines synthesized both kappa and lambda chains but secreted only kappa chains. Hybrid cells produced by fusion of a lambda-secreting clone of MOPC 315 with the kappa-secreting cell line were also isolated and shown to synthesize and secrete both kappa and lambda chains. These results suggest that the nonsecretion of lambda chains was not due to a defect the secretion mechanism of the variant cells. A more likely alternative is that the lambda chains in the variant cell lines were structurally altered to a form which could not be secreted.