Abstract
Zebrafish (Danio rerio) are a valuable model for studying immunity, infection, and hematopoietic disease and have recently been employed for transplantation assays. However, the lack of syngeneic zebrafish creates challenges with identifying immune-matched individuals. The MHC class I genes, which mediate allogeneic recognition in mammals, have been grouped into three broad lineages in zebrafish: the classical U genes on chromosome 19, the Z genes which have been reported to map to chromosome 1, and the L genes that map to multiple loci. Transplantations between individual zebrafish that are matched at the U locus fail to consistently engraft suggesting that additional loci contribute to allogeneic recognition. Although two full-length zebrafish Z transcripts have been described, the genomic organization and diversity of these genes have not been reported. Herein we define ten Z genes on chromosomes 1 and 3 and on an unplaced genomic scaffold. We report that neither of the Z transcripts previously described match the current genome assembly and classify these transcripts as additional gene loci. We characterize full-length transcripts for 9 of these 12 genes. We demonstrate a high level of expression variation of the Z genes between individual zebrafish suggestive of haplotypic variation. We report low level sequence variation for individual Z genes between individual zebrafish reflecting a possible nonclassical function, although these molecules may still contribute to allogeneic recognition. Finally, we present a gene nomenclature system for the Z genes consistent with MHC nomenclature in other species and with the zebrafish gene nomenclature guidelines.
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Acknowledgments
The zebrafish Z gene nomenclature has been approved by the Zebrafish Nomenclature Committee. We thank Brian Dixon (University of Waterloo), Hans (JM) Dijkstra (Fujita Health University), and Amy Singer (Zebrafish Model Organism Database, University of Oregon) for very helpful discussions and advice on MHC gene nomenclature, and Jill de Jong and Sean McConnell (University of Chicago) for sharing their knowledge regarding the MHC class I U genes. We thank John Rawls (University of North Carolina), John Godwin (NC State University), and Sergei Revskoy (Northwestern University) for sharing their TU, LSB, and CG2 fish, respectively. We thank Ivan Rodriguez-Nunez (North Carolina State University) and Carlos Rivera (Millbrook High School) for assistance with experiments. H.D. is supported in part by a National Institutes of Health Biotechnology Traineeship (T32 GM008776) and by a Joseph E. Pogue Fellowship through the UNC Royster Society of Fellows.
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Dirscherl, H., Yoder, J.A. Characterization of the Z lineage Major histocompatability complex class I genes in zebrafish. Immunogenetics 66, 185–198 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00251-013-0748-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00251-013-0748-z