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High MHC DQB Variation and Asymmetric Allelic Distribution in the Endangered Yangtze Finless Porpoise, Neophocaena phocaenoides asiaeorientalis

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Abstract

The endangered Yangtze finless porpoise is found in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River and its adjoining big lakes. To explore the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) genetic diversity and allelic distribution patterns across its range, we investigated variation at DQB exon 2. From 76 porpoises, we identified 18 DQB sequences. The freshwater Yangtze populations had much higher allelic diversity than marine populations. Among these freshwater populations, the middle-reach population had higher allelic diversity than the lower-reach population. The high DQB diversity level, relative to that of a neutral mtDNA locus, suggests that balancing selection is acting at the DQB gene and that rapid evolution and local positive selection play critical roles in generating and retaining high MHC diversity in the freshwater population. As the balancing selection might be driven by environmental pathogens, we suggest that maintaining MHC variation should be a high priority in the conservation and management of this endangered population, especially as an ex situ conservation strategy.

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Acknowledgments

We wish to thank the staff of the Research Group on Conservation Biology of Aquatic Animals at the Institute of Hydrobiology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences for collecting samples. We also thank Tongling Freshwater Cetaceans Natural Reserve of Anhui Province and Tian-e-Zhou Baiji National Natural Reserve in Hubei Province for providing samples. We are grateful to Prof. Michel C. Milinkovitch (Laboratory of Evolutionary Genetics, Free University of Brussels), Dr. Richard W. McLaughlin (University of Wisconsin–La Crosse), and two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestions on our manuscript. This research was supported by grants from the National Basic Research Program of China (973 Program, No. 2007CB411600), the Ministry of Science and Technology (No. 2004DFB03000), and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 30730018 and 30570252).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Hydrobiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, 430072, China

    Hejun Du, Jinsong Zheng, Min Wu, Qingzhong Zhao & Ding Wang

  2. Graduate School, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100039, China

    Hejun Du & Min Wu

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  1. Hejun Du
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  2. Jinsong Zheng
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  3. Min Wu
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  4. Qingzhong Zhao
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Correspondence to Jinsong Zheng or Ding Wang.

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Du, H., Zheng, J., Wu, M. et al. High MHC DQB Variation and Asymmetric Allelic Distribution in the Endangered Yangtze Finless Porpoise, Neophocaena phocaenoides asiaeorientalis . Biochem Genet 48, 433–449 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10528-009-9327-2

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