Multiplicity of germline genes specifying a group of related mouse κ chains with implications for the generation of immunoglobulin diversity

Abstract
The number of germline genes specifying the variable sequences of V.kappa.21 group of L chains was determined by saturation hybridization analysis to be 4-6. This gene multiplicyt is considerably less than the total variability in the group, indicating that .kappa.-chain diversity is generated by somatic mutations in both framework and complementarity-determining (hypervariable) regions.