Abstract
Cattle are the only non-primate species for which expansion of the killer cell immunoglobulin-like receptor (KIR) genes has been reported. We analyzed cattle KIR sequences to determine their relationship to the two divergent lineages of primate KIR: one comprising the KIR3DX1 gene of unknown function, the second comprising all other primate KIR genes, which encode variable major histocompatibility complex class I receptors. Phylogenetics and analysis of repetitive elements shows that cattle KIR subdivide into the same two lineages as primate KIR. Unlike the primates, the lineage of variable and likely functional cattle KIR corresponds to the KIR3DX1 lineage of primate KIR, whereas the variable lineage of primate KIR is represented in cattle by one KIR gene and a related gene fragment.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
References
Abi-Rached L, Parham P (2005) Natural selection drives recurrent formation of activating killer cell immunoglobulin-like receptor and Ly49 from inhibitory homologues. J Exp Med 201:1319–1332
Benton MJ, Donoghue PC (2007) Paleontological evidence to date the tree of life. Mol Biol Evol 24:26–53
Hoelsbrekken SE, Nylenna O, Saether PC, Slettedal IO, Ryan JC, Fossum S, Dissen E (2003) Cutting edge: molecular cloning of a killer cell Ig-like receptor in the mouse and rat. J Immunol 170:2259–2263
Katoh K, Misawa K, Kuma K, Miyata T (2002) MAFFT: a novel method for rapid multiple sequence alignment based on fast Fourier transform. Nucleic Acids Res 30:3059–3066
Kumar S, Tamura K, Nei M (2004) MEGA3: integrated software for molecular evolutionary genetics analysis and sequence alignment. Brief Bioinform 5:150–163
Martin AM, Freitas EM, Witt CS, Christiansen FT (2000) The genomic organization and evolution of the natural killer immunoglobulin-like receptor (KIR) gene cluster. Immunogenetics 51:268–280
McQueen KL, Wilhelm BT, Harden KD, Mager DL (2002) Evolution of NK receptors: a single Ly49 and multiple KIR genes in the cow. Eur J Immunol 32:810–817
Nikolaidis N, Klein J, Nei M (2005) Origin and evolution of the Ig-like domains present in mammalian leukocyte receptors: insights from chicken, frog, and fish homologues. Immunogenetics 57:151–157
Sambrook JG, Bashirova A, Palmer S, Sims S, Trowsdale J, Abi-Rached L, Parham P, Carrington M, Beck S (2005) Single haplotype analysis demonstrates rapid evolution of the killer immunoglobulin-like receptor (KIR) loci in primates. Genome Res 15:25–35
Sambrook JG, Sehra H, Coggill P, Humphray S, Palmer S, Sims S, Takamatsu HH, Wileman T, Archibald AL, Beck S (2006a) Identification of a single killer immunoglobulin-like receptor (KIR) gene in the porcine leukocyte receptor complex on chromosome 6q. Immunogenetics 58:481–486
Sambrook JG, Bashirova A, Andersen H, Piatak M, Vernikos GS, Coggill P, Lifson JD, Carrington M, Beck S (2006b) Identification of the ancestral killer immunoglobulin-like receptor gene in primates. BMC Genomics 7:209
Storset AK, Slettedal IO, Williams JL, Law A, Dissen E (2003) Natural killer cell receptors in cattle: a bovine killer cell immunoglobulin-like receptor multigene family contains members with divergent signaling motifs. Eur J Immunol 33:980–990
Takahashi T, Yawata M, Raudsepp T, Lear TL, Chowdhary BP, Antczak DF, Kasahara M (2004) Natural killer cell receptors in the horse: evidence for the existence of multiple transcribed LY49 genes. Eur J Immunol 34:773–784
Thorne JL, Kishino H (2002) Divergence time and evolutionary rate estimation with multilocus data. Syst Biol 51:689–702
Thorne JL, Kishino H, Painter IS (1998) Estimating the rate of evolution of the rate of molecular evolution. Mol Biol Evol 15:1647–1657
Uhrberg M, Valiante NM, Young NT, Lanier LL, Phillips JH, Parham P (2001) The repertoire of killer cell Ig-like receptor and CD94:NKG2A receptors in T cells: clones sharing identical alpha beta TCR rearrangement express highly diverse killer cell Ig-like receptor patterns. J Immunol 166:3923–3932
Welch AY, Kasahara M, Spain LM (2003) Identification of the mouse killer immunoglobulin-like receptor-like (Kirl) gene family mapping to chromosome X. Immunogenetics 54:782–790
Wende H, Colonna M, Ziegler A, Volz A (1999) Organization of the leukocyte receptor cluster (LRC) on human chromosome 19q13.4. Mamm Genome 10:154–160
Wilson MJ, Torkar M, Haude A, Milne S, Jones T, Sheer D, Beck S, Trowsdale J (2000) Plasticity in the organization and sequences of human KIR/ILT gene families. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 97:4778–4783
Acknowledgments
The research described in this paper was supported by NIH grant AI024258 to P.P.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Guethlein, L.A., Abi-Rached, L., Hammond, J.A. et al. The expanded cattle KIR genes are orthologous to the conserved single-copy KIR3DX1 gene of primates. Immunogenetics 59, 517–522 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00251-007-0214-x
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00251-007-0214-x