Ancient haplotypes of the HLA Class II region (original) (raw)

  1. Christopher K. Raymond1,2,
  2. Arnold Kas1,
  3. Marcia Paddock1,
  4. Ruolan Qiu1,
  5. Yang Zhou1,
  6. Sandhya Subramanian1,
  7. Jean Chang1,
  8. Anthony Palmieri1,2,
  9. Eric Haugen1,
  10. Rajinder Kaul1, and
  11. Maynard V. Olson1,3
  12. 1 University of Washington Genome Center, Department of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195, USA

Abstract

Allelic variation in codons that specify amino acids that line the peptide-binding pockets of HLA's Class II antigen-presenting proteins is superimposed on strikingly few deeply diverged haplotypes. These haplotypes appear to have been evolving almost independently for tens of millions of years. By complete resequencing of 20 haplotypes across the ∼100-kbp region that spans the _HLA_-DQA1, -DQB1, and -DRB1 genes, we provide a detailed view of the way in which the genome structure at this locus has been shaped by the interplay of selection, gene-gene interaction, and recombination.

Footnotes