Hypothesis: somatic hypermutation by gene conversion via the error prone DNA----RNA----DNA information loop

A mechanism to explain somatic hypermutation in immunoglobulin variable region genes is proposed employing polynucleotide information transfer through the error prone DNA----RNA----DNA loop. During transcription of the rearranged V-region, the primary transcript undergoes either inappropriate termination, cleavage, or reverse transcriptase priming allowing a V-region specific reverse-transcriptase-integrase complex to synthesize a DNA copy of the rearranged V-region and integrate it, by homologous recombination, back into the normal chromosomal site. Some consequences and predictions of the hypothesis are discussed.