Somatic Recombination Products

Question

Select one of the following options to complete the statement below:

Somatic recombination -

1. Produces only variable light chain

2. Produces only variable heavy chain

3. Produces Fc regions

4. Is inherited

5. Produces both variable light and heavy chain

Answer 1

Somatic recombination produces both variable light and heavy chains. Somatic recombination is the process by which inherited gene segments undergo double-stranded breakage to then be brought together and re-ligated, in an attempt to make a continuous immunoglobulin chain. There are numerous copies of each gene segment: V, D, and J for heavy chain, and V and J for light chain. Each copy carries a slightly different amino acid sequence and thus will bind a different antigen at baseline.