Analysis of immunoglobulin mRNA in murine myeloma cell variants defective in the synthesis of the light or heavy polypeptide chains

M. Wallach, R. Ishay-Michaeli, D. Givol, R. Laskov

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

5 Scopus citations

Abstract

The immunoglobulin (Ig) mRNA species in spontaneously arisen myeloma cell variants, which lose the ability to synthesize the Ig heavy and/or light chains, were analyzed using the RNA blotting technique. Nick-translated recombinant plasmid clones containing κ- and γ-chain sequences were used as hybridization probes. It was found that the MPC 11 clone 4T00.1L1 and the MOPC 21 clone NSI, which are known to produce small quantities of the γ(2b) and γ1 heavy chains, respectively, contained correspondingly small amounts of γ-mRNA molecules; although the γ-mRNA of clone 4T00.1L1 was of normal size (1.9 kilo bases [kb]), the γ-mRNA of clone NSI was of a smaller size (1.3 kb). Reduced quantities of a smaller sized γ heavy chain mRNA were also found in the MPC 11 clone 66.2 (1.7 kb) and in MOPC 21 clones P3NP (1.7 kb) and 653 (1.7 kb), which do not produce detectable amounts of γ heavy chains. The only nonproducer clone that seemed to be completely devoid of the γ-mRNA was clone NP2 (MPC 11). With regard to the κ-mRNA, the nonproducer MOPC 21 variants P3NP and 653 were found to contain appreciable amounts of smaller or normal-sized κ-mRNA, respectively. In contrast, the MPC 11 nonproducer clone NP2 did not contain detectable levels of the full-length 1.2 kb κ-mRNA, even though it did produce the 0.8 kb κ-mRNA fragment, which is known to be present in all the MPC 11 clones. It would thus appear that most of the myeloma cell variants that lost the ability to produce Ig chains contain reduced to normal quantities of smaller or normal-sized Ig mRNA molecules. These findings indicate that in many of these mutants the respective Ig genes are not fully deleted.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)684-690
Number of pages7
JournalJournal of Immunology
Volume128
Issue number2
StatePublished - 1982

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Analysis of immunoglobulin mRNA in murine myeloma cell variants defective in the synthesis of the light or heavy polypeptide chains'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this