The B cell antigen receptor of class IgD can be expressed on the cell surface in two different forms

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Abstract
Membrane-bound immunoglobulins of the IgM and IgD class are expressed on the B cell surface in association with a disulfide-linked heterodimer consisting of α and β subunits. While the α component of the IgM antigen receptor (IgM-α, 34-kDa) is encoded by the B cell-specific gene mb-1, the gene coding for IgD-α (35 kDa) has not yet been identified. We show here that the α component of the IgD antigen receptor is also encoded by the mb-1 gene. The difference in molecular weight between IgM-α and IgD-α thus seems to be due to post-translational modifications of the mb-1 gene product. We also demonstrate that the previously described myeloma variant J558Lδm2.6 expresses an alternative form of the IgD antigen receptor, which does not contain an α/β heterodimer.