While characterizing the cat eye syndrome (CES) supernumerary chromoso
me for the presence of lambda immunoglobulin gene region sequences, a
lymphoblastoid cell line from one CES patient was identified in which
there was selection of cells deleted for some IGLC and IGLV genes. Two
distinct deletions, one on each chromosome 22, were identified, presu
mably arising from independent somatic recombination events occurring
during B-lymphocyte differentiation. The extent of the deleted regions
was determined using probes from the various IGLV subgroups and they
each cover at least 82 kilobases. The precise definition of the deleti
ons was not possible because of conservation of some restriction sites
in the IGLV region. The cell Line was used to map putative IGLV genes
within the recombinant phage lambda V lambda 135 to the distal part o
f the IGLV gene region. Since the deletions are relatively small, the
cell line will be valuable for mapping IGLV genes in the distal part o
f this region.