Ohno S, Matsunaga T
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1982 Apr;79(7):2338-41. doi: 10.1073/pnas.79.7.2338.
The ancestral gene for immunoglobulin light-chain variable regions (Ig VLs) of the kappa as well as the lambda class apparently arose from about 12 tandem repeats of the 48-base-long primordial building block sequence TCT-TGC-GCA-GTA-AGT-CCA-CTC-CAG-GTC-ATA-TCC-AGT-CAG-GCT-GCT-GAA. Even today, amino acid residues 67 to 82 of each Ig V kappa L are still specified by a direct descendant in toto of the above-noted primordial building block, whereas amino acid residues 14 to 25 are invariably specified by its truncated copy. The Ig VL primordial building block presently identified is 100% complementary to the Ig VH (heavy-chain variable region) primordial building block previously identified. In the recognition of specific antigenic determinants by antibodies, Ig VL and Ig VH of light-chain--heavy-chain dimers have to complement each other. It is perhaps fitting that the primordial building blocks of the two are represented by the complementary strands of the same 48-base-pair-long DNA sequence.
κ链和λ链免疫球蛋白轻链可变区(Ig VLs)的祖先基因显然起源于48个碱基长的原始构建模块序列TCT-TGC-GCA-GTA-AGT-CCA-CTC-CAG-GTC-ATA-TCC-AGT-CAG-GCT-GCT-GAA的约12个串联重复。即使在今天,每个Ig VκL的氨基酸残基67至82仍然完全由上述原始构建模块的直系后代指定,而氨基酸残基14至25总是由其截短的拷贝指定。目前鉴定出的Ig VL原始构建模块与先前鉴定出的Ig VH(重链可变区)原始构建模块100%互补。在抗体识别特定抗原决定簇的过程中,轻链-重链二聚体的Ig VL和Ig VH必须相互补充。也许恰如其分的是,两者的原始构建模块由同一段48个碱基对长的DNA序列的互补链代表。