Light chain types of IgD in human bone marrow and serum

One of the unexplained features of human IgD is its preferential expression with either kappa or lambda light chains in different situations. While the membrane IgD on B lymphocytes shows a predominance of the kappa type, about 90% of all known IgD myeloma proteins and 87% of normal IgD producing plasma cells in spleens of healthy individuals were shown to belong to the lambda type. Very little is known of the kappa/lambda light chain distribution of normal polyclonal IgD in the serum and in the bone marrow plasma cells. In this study, the kappa/lambda representation of IgD in bone marrow plasma cells and in the serum of 25 adult persons (two healthy and 23 suffering from various nonmalignant diseases) was investigated. The kappa/lambda ratio of IgD+ bone marrow plasma cells showed a large variation among the individuals of this group, in 84% of the cases being below 1.0. While about 1/3 of the investigated subjects had 80% or more of IgD of the lambda type (kappa/lambda ratio below 0.2), most showed a kappa/lambda ratio of IgD higher than that, with four persons exhibiting a clear cut predominance of IgD of the kappa type. A positive correlation (Spearman's correlation co-efficient, P = 0.005) between the percentages of IgD+ plasma cells and their kappa/lambda ratio was found. Semiquantitative evaluation of the kappa/lambda composition within the serum IgD by immunoselection was in agreement with the kappa/lambda ratio of IgD+ plasma cells in all individual cases.