The 14.1 surrogate light chain protein is expressed on human pre-B lymphocytes in association with Vpre-B and the mu Ig heavy chain to form the pre-B receptor. The 14.1 chain has also been called the lambda (lambda)-like (LL) protein and is homologous to murine lambda5. The 14.1(IGLL1) gene is expressed in a lineage- and stage-restricted manner. To understand the molecular mechanism of the 14.1 gene tissue- and stage-specific expression, we analyzed the 5'-flanking region and characterized the promoter for this gene. In this report, we identify two DNase I-hypersensitive sites located at 2.6 kilobases (HSS 1) and 0.2 kilobases (HSS 1) upstream of 14.1 exon 1. These hypersensitive sites are present in pre-B lymphocyte cell lines, but absent in mature B and T cell lines. We have used RNase protection analysis to localize the 5' major transcriptional start site and rapid amplification of 5' cDNA ends to identify multiple start sites within the TATA-less, GC-rich 14.1 promoter. The region encompassing HSS 2 was analyzed for promoter activity. Transfection of cell lines with a series of truncated segments of the 5' flanking region linked to the luciferase reporter gene revealed that the 14.1 promoter is lineage- and stage-specific, and we localized this activity to positions +150 to +227 relative to the 5' major transcriptional start site.