Immunogenetics

, Volume 68, Issue 1, pp 77–82 | Cite as

Assembly and characterization of the MHC class I region of the Yangtze finless porpoise (Neophocaena asiaeorientalis asiaeorientalis)

Short Communication
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Abstract

The Yangtze finless porpoise (Neophocaena asiaeorientalis asiaeorientalis; YFP) is the sole freshwater subspecies of N. asiaeorientalis and is now critically endangered. Major histocompatibility complex (MHC) is a family of highly polymorphic genes that play an important immunological role in antigen presentation in the vertebrates. Currently, however, little is known about MHC region in the genome of the YFP, which hampers conservation genetics and evolutionary ecology study using MHC genes. In this work, a nucleotide sequence of 774,811 bp covering the YFP MHC class I region was obtained by screening a YFP bacterial artificial chromosome (BAC) library, followed by sequencing and assembly of positive BAC clones. A total of 45 genes were successfully annotated, of which four were MHC class I genes. There are high similarities among the four YFP MHC class I genes (>94 %). Divergence in the coding region of the four YFP MHC class I genes is mainly localized to exons 2 and 3, which encode the antigen-binding sites of MHC class I genes. Additionally, comparison of the MHC structure in YFP to those of cattle, sheep, and pig showed that MHC class I genes are located in genome regions with regard to the conserved genes, and the YFP contains the fewest MHC class I genes among these species. This is the first report characterizing a cetacean MHC class I region and describing its organization, which would be valuable for further investigation of adaptation in natural populations of the YFP and other cetaceans.

Keywords

Yangtze finless porpoise MHC class I Characterization High similarities 
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Notes

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 31430080; No. 31000168), the National Basic Research Program of China (No. 2007CB411600), the Knowledge Innovation Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (No. Y05E011101), and the Experimental Platform Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (No. CZBZX-1).

Compliance with ethical standard

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Supplementary material

251_2015_885_MOESM1_ESM.doc (34 kb)
Table S1 Primers used for screening BAC library to construct the contig of the Yangtze finless porpoise MHC class I region. (DOC 33 kb)
251_2015_885_MOESM2_ESM.doc (44 kb)
Table S2 GenBank accession numbers of the MHC class I genes used to construct phylogenetic trees (DOC 44 kb)

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Copyright information

© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2015

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Key Laboratory of Aquatic Biodiversity and Conservation of the Chinese Academy of SciencesInstitute of Hydrobiology, Chinese Academy of SciencesWuhanChina
  2. 2.University of Chinese Academy of SciencesBeijingChina

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