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Relative roles of mutation and recombination in generating allelic polymorphism at an MHC class II locus in Peromyscus maniculatus

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2003

ADAM D. RICHMAN
Affiliation:
Plant Sciences Department, MSU Bozeman, Bozeman, MT 59717, USA
L. GERARDO HERRERA
Affiliation:
Department Zoology, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Instituto de Biología, A.P. 70-153, 04510 México D.F., México
DEANNA NASH
Affiliation:
Plant Sciences Department, MSU Bozeman, Bozeman, MT 59717, USA
MIKKEL H. SCHIERUP
Affiliation:
Bioinformatics Research Center (BiRC), Department of Ecology and Genetics, University of Aarhus, Ny Munkegade, Building 540, DK-8000 Aarhus C, Denmark
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Abstract

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The MHC class II loci encoding cell surface antigens exhibit extremely high allelic polymorphism. There is considerable uncertainty in the literature over the relative roles of recombination and de novo mutation in generating this diversity. We studied class II sequence diversity and allelic polymorphism in two populations of Peromyscus maniculatus, which are among the most widespread and abundant mammals of North America. We find that intragenic recombination (or gene conversion) has been the predominant mode for the generation of allelic polymorphism in this species, with the amount of population recombination per base pair exceeding mutation by at least an order of magnitude during the history of the sample. Despite this, patchwork motifs of sites with high linkage disequilibrium are observed. This does not appear to be consistent with the much larger amount of recombination versus mutation in the history of the sample, unless the recombination rate is highly non-uniform over the sequence or selection maintains certain sites in linkage disequilibrium. We conclude that selection is most likely to be responsible for preserving sequence motifs in the presence of abundant recombination.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© 2003 Cambridge University Press