Rapid cloning of rearranged immunoglobulin heavy chain genes from human B-cell lines using anchored polymerase chain reaction.

A general method to obtain the variable region DNA sequence of the immunoglobulin heavy chain using anchored polymerase chain reaction is described. Based on this DNA sequence, clone-specific oligonucleotides were designed to anneal to the complementarity determining regions. These were used to identify the original B-cell clone in serial dilutions of polyclonal lymph node DNA with high specificity and sensitivity. This method should be useful for studying minimal residual disease in B-cell neoplasia.