Primary structure of a deleted human lambda type immunoglobulin light chain containing carbohydrate: protein Sm lambda.

An internal molecular deletion occurring in a human lambda type immunoglobulin light (L)-chain (Sm lambda) has been defined by sequence analysis. The Sm protein was isolated from the urine of a patient with a plasma cell dyscrasia involving the synthesis of an IgG molecule with both deleted gamma and lambda subunits. The Sm lambda polypeptide chain has an approximate molecular weight of 15,000 and contains 135 amino-acid residues. The constant (C) region is fully intact, comprising 105 residues, whereas the variable region (V) has only 30 residues. The V-region segment represents residues 1 through 30 of normal lambda chains and possesses considerable homology (87%) to lambda chains of subgroup II. Since lambdaII proteins normally contain 216 amino-acid residues, the defect represents an intramolecular deletion of 81 residues, which is entirely confined to the carboxyterminal three-quarters segment of the V-region, with a resumption of normal synthesis at a glutaminyl residue at position 110, the initiation point of the C-region. Carbohydrate is attached to an Asx residue at position 25, in the first hypervariable region, associated with the sequence triplet Asx-Ser-Ser, which is postulated to be a common recognition site for glycosylation of immunoglobulins. The carbohydrate moiety is a complex oligosaccharide with a branched chain structure containing sialic acid, fucose, mannose, N-acetylglucosamine, and galactose. These structural studies and other findings suggest that restricted areas in the DNA of immunoglobulin genes, such as the hinge regions of heavy (H) and light (L) chains and the hypervariable regions, are particularly susceptible to breakage and reunion. We postulate that the genetic defect of protein Sm could have originated from a somatic mutational event in the plasmacyte precursor during or after the integration of the V and C genes. These studies provide additional support for the hypothesis and two distinct structural genes encode a single immunoglobulin polypeptide chain.