Human immunoglobulin VH and VK repertoire revealed by in situ hybridization

We report in this paper the first analysis of the expression pattern of Ig VH and VK families in human adult normal peripheral B lymphocytes, by in situ hybridization using specific VH1 to VH6 and VK1 to VK4 probes, which cover the known human V gene families reported to date. The major families were VH3 and VK1, with the respective gradient VH3 greater than VH4 greater than VH1 greater than VH5 greater than VH6 greater than VH2, and VK1 greater than VK3 greater than VK4 greater than VK2. Using a large sampling of EBV clones, we found that the pattern of VH and VK family usage was similar. The expression level correlated fairly with the estimated gene number for the VH, but diverged noticeably for the K chains. Taken together with the fact that the level of light chain expression (K + lambda) was about two-fold that of heavy chains, these results suggest that the VH and the VK repertoires are not regulated by a similar selective process.