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This Article Full Text (PDF) Data Supplement All Versions of this Article: jimmunol.0901310v1 183/10/6530    most recent Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Request Permissions Google Scholar Articles by Chaves, L. D. Articles by Reed, K. M. PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Chaves, L. D. Articles by Reed, K. M.

Defining the Turkey MHC: Sequence and Genes of the B Locus^1,2

Department of Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences, College of Veterinary Medicine, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN 55108

The MHC, the most polymorphic and gene dense region in the vertebrate genome, contains many loci essential to immunity. In mammals, this region spans 4 Mb. Studies of avian species have found the MHC to be greatly reduced in size and gene content with an overall locus organization differing from that of mammals. The chicken MHC has been mapped to two distinct regions (MHC-B and -Y) of a single chromosome. MHC-B haplotypes possess tightly linked genes encoding the classical MHC molecules and few other disease resistance genes. Furthermore, chicken haplotypes possess a dominantly expressed class I and class II B locus that have a significant effect on the progression or regression of pathogenic disease. In this study, we present the MHC-B region of the turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) as a similarly constricted locus, with 34 genes identified within a 0.2-Mb region in near-perfect synteny with that of the chicken MHC-B. Notable differences between the two species are three BG and class II B loci in the turkey compared with one BG and two class II B loci in the chicken MHC-B. The relative size and high level of similarity of the turkey MHC in relation to that of the chicken suggest that similar associations with disease susceptibility and resistance may also be found in turkey.

³ Address correspondence and reprint requests to Dr. Lee D. Chaves at the current Address: National Jewish Health, Division of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, Department of Medicine, Denver, CO 80206. E-mail address: ChavesL{at}NJHealth.org

¹ This research was supported by grants from the University of Minnesota Agriculture Experiment Station and the Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture (2004-35205-14217 and 2009-35205-05302).

² The sequence(s) presented in this article has been submitted to GenBank (www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/GenBank) under accession number(s) DQ993255.