Kappa and lambda immunoglobulin expression associated with abnormalities of chromosomes #2 and #22 in lymphoma and...

The types of surface immunoglobulins on Burkitt lymphoma (BL) cells correlate with the specific chromosomes that are altered in the tumor. For example, BL with a t(2;8) translocation expresses kappa (kappa) light chains, whereas BL with a t(8;22) translocation expresses lambda (lambda) light immunoglobulin chains; these correspond with the locations of the kappa chain genes on chromosome #2 and the lambda chain genes on chromosome #22, respectively (1-5). In order to explain this close correlation between specific translocations and light chain expression in BL and BL-type acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL) (L3 type), Hecht et al. [6] proposed the concept of position effect, which is reviewed herein.