Immunoglobulin kappa locus, also known as IGK@, is a region on the p arm of human

chromosome 2 Chromosome 2 is one of the twenty-three pairs of chromosomes in humans. People normally have two copies of this chromosome. Chromosome 2 is the second-largest human chromosome, spanning more than 242 million base pairs and representing almost ei ...

, region 11.2 (2p11.2), that contains

gene In biology, the word gene has two meanings. The Mendelian gene is a basic unit of heredity. The molecular gene is a sequence of nucleotides in DNA that is transcribed to produce a functional RNA. There are two types of molecular genes: protei ...

s for the kappa (κ) light chains of

antibodies An antibody (Ab) or immunoglobulin (Ig) is a large, Y-shaped protein belonging to the immunoglobulin superfamily which is used by the immune system to identify and neutralize antigens such as bacteria and viruses, including those that caus ...

(or immunoglobulins). In humans the κ chain is coded for by V (variable), J (joining) and C (constant) genes in this region.Male, D., Brostoff, J., Roth, D.B., & Roitt, I. 2006. Immunology. 7th ed., Canada: Elsevier Limited These genes undergo

V(D)J recombination V(D)J recombination (variable–diversity–joining rearrangement) is the mechanism of somatic recombination that occurs only in developing lymphocytes during the early stages of T and B cell maturation. It results in the highly diverse repertoire ...

to generate a diverse repertoire of immunoglobulins.

Genes

The immunoglobulin kappa locus contains the following genes: * IGKC: immunoglobulin kappa constant * IGKJ@: immunoglobulin kappa joining group ** IGKJ1, IGKJ2, IGKJ3, IGKJ4, IGKJ5 * IGKV@: immunoglobulin kappa variable group ** IGKV1-5, IGKV1-6, IGKV1-8, IGKV1-9, IGKV1-12, IGKV1-16, IGKV1-17, IGKV1-27, IGKV1-33 ** IGKV1D-8, IGKV1D-12, IGKV1D-13, IGKV1D-16, IGKV1D-17, IGKV1D-22, IGKV1D-27, IGKV1D-32, IGKV1D-33, IGKV1D-39, IGKV1D-43 ** IGKV2-24, IGKV2-28, IGKV2-30, IGKV2-40 ** IGKV2D-26, IGKV2D-28, IGKV2D-29, IGKV2D-30, IGKV2D-40 ** IGKV3-11, IGKV3-15, IGKV3-20 ** IGKV3D-7, IGKV3D-11, IGKV3D-20 ** IGKV4-1 ** IGKV5-2 * and a number of non-functional and

pseudogene Pseudogenes are nonfunctional segments of DNA that resemble functional genes. Pseudogenes can be formed from both protein-coding genes and non-coding genes. In the case of protein-coding genes, most pseudogenes arise as superfluous copies of fun ...

Genes

References

Further reading