Possible involvement of human D minigenes in the first complementarity-determining region of kappa light chains

The nucleotide sequences of the complementary strands of two human diversity region (D) minigenes, D2 and D4, show stretches of homology with two human variable region kappa chain (V kappa) genes, NG9 and HK101, respectively, in the first complementarity-determining region. In one V kappa sequence, the homology includes the 5' flanking region of D minigenes, which may comprise a recombinase recognition signal. It is thus conceivable that gene conversions involving D minigenes may contribute to V kappa diversity.