Allelic polymorphisms and RFLP in the human immunoglobulin lambda light chain locus

The organization of the human immunoglobulin lambda light chain locus (IGL) was recently described. This locus has been entirely sequenced. To evaluat e the extent of the genomic variability existing inside that locus, we comp iled all the available sequences of germline IGLV genes to find variants of Vh sequences. We also looked for RFLP polymorphisms in a reputedly highly polymorphic human population from eastern Senegal, and compiled all RFLP da ta previously published. Analysis of these data indicates that IGLV alleles are frequent and increase the diversity of the lambda light chain repertoi re in the human population. In contrast, RFLP and polymorphism by insertion and/or deletion are limited in that locus. This observation reinforces our hypothesis that the human IGL locus has undergone less evolutionary shuffl ing than the human kappa or heavy-chain loci.