Cloning of human immunoglobulin μ gene and comparison with mouse μ gene

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Abstract
We have cloned a 12 kb DNA segment containing human μ gene and its flanking sequence from human fetal liver DNA library using mouse μ gene as a probe. Partial nucleotide sequence determination shows that the cloned DNA contains the sequence encoding human μ chain. This is the first constant region gene of the human heavy chain that is cloned. We have compared human and mouse μ genes by heteroduplex analysis and Southern blot hybridization. The results clearly show that not only the sequence encoding the CH 4 domain but also the 5′-flanking (S μ ) sequence is conserved between human and mouse μ genes, suggesting that the nucleotide sequence in the S μ region has an important biological function, presumably a recognition signal for the class switch recombination as proposed previously.