Interconversion of conformational isomers of light chains in the Mcg immunoglobulins

Previous crystallographic studies in this laboratory demonstrated that immunoglobulin light chains with the same amino acid sequence can have at least two and probably three or more conformations, depending on whether the second member of an interacting pair is a light or heavy chain. If a heavy chain is not available in the assembly medium, a second light chain plays the structural role of the heavy chain in the formation of a dimer. In the present work, the lambda-type light chains were dissociated from the heavy chains of a serum IgG1 immunoglobulin from the patient Mcg and reassembled noncovalently into a dimer. The reassembly process was completed by allowing the penultimate half-cystine residues to form an interchain disulfide bond. The covalently linked dimer was compared with the Mcg urinary Bence-Jones dimer, for which an atomic model has been fitted to a 2.3-A electron density map. The assembled dimer and the native Bence-Jones protein were indistinguishable in their chromatographic and electrophoretic properties, as well as in their activity in the binding of bis(dinitrophenyl)lysine. These results indicate that the light chains can be converted into the two types of Bence-Jones conformational isomers. The procedure was also reversed: the two Bence-Jones isomers were dissociated and reassembled as the single type of isomer associating with each of two heavy chains in the IgG1 protein. The change in activity occurring when a light chain associates with a heavy chain instead of a second light chain is illustrated by the fact that the Mcg IgG1 immunoglobulin does not bind dis(dinitrophenyl)lysine in measurable amounts.