Novel immunoglobulin heavy chains are produced from DJH gene segment rearrangements in lymphoid cells

Abstract
Most IgH chain gene diversity (D) segments carry their own 5'' transcriptional promoter element. Transcription of rearrangements which use H chain D and joining (J) segments in B lymphoid cells [for mice] ultimately leads to the production of a D.mu. mRNA which contains the DJH segments linked to the .mu. H chain constant region. If the D is joined to the JH segment in the appropriate translational reading frame, this D.mu. mRNA is translated to yield a short D.mu. protein with a variable DJH N-terminus.