MHC class I allele diversity in cynomolgus macaques of Vietnamese origin

Abstract

Cynomolgus macaques (Macaca fascicularis, Mafa) have been used as important experimental animal models for carrying out biomedical researches. The results of biomedical experiments strongly depend on the immunogenetic background of animals, especially on the diversity of major histocompatibility complex (MHC) alleles. However, there is much less information available on the polymorphism of MHC class I genes in cynomolgus macaques, than is currently available for humans. In this study, we have identified 40 Mafa-A and 60 Mafa-B exons 2 and 3 sequences from 30 unrelated cynomolgus macaques of Vietnamese origin. Among these alleles, 28 are novel. As for the remaining 72 known alleles, 15 alleles are shared with other cynomolgus macaque populations and 32 are identical to alleles previously reported in other macaque species. A potential recombination event was observed between Mafa-A1*091:02 and Mafa-A1*057:01. In addition, the Mafa-A1 genes were found to be more diverse than human HLA-A and the functional residues for peptide binding sites (PBS) or TCR binding sites (TBS) in Mafa-A1 have greater variability than that for non-PBS or non-TBS regions. Overall, this study provides important information on the diversity of Mafa-A and Mafa-B alleles from Vietnamese origin, which may help researchers to choose the most appropriate animals for their studies.

Long-read assembly of major histocompatibility complex and killer cell immunoglobulin-like receptor genome regions in cynomolgus macaque

“…Although there is an evident discrepancy in the variation of MHC class I genes between the two widely used non-human primate animal models, many studies have demonstrated that a few conserved MHC class I genes in both macaque species may have evolved to fulfill important immune functions. These conserved genes may have fine-tuned their sequences in response to environmental pathogens [ 14 , 93 , 99 ]. Our previous studies have confirmed that ancient introgression occurs at the junction of the two species, as extremely high nucleotide sequence similarity was observed between Chinese rhesus macaques and cynomolgus macaques [ 59 ].…”

A pan‐cetacean MHC amplicon sequencing panel developed and evaluated in combination with genome assemblies

“…The MHC can also be used to investigate mate choice (Kamiya et al., 2014; Leclaire et al., 2019). Hundreds of studies have investigated MHC diversity and cover a large range of taxa, including birds (reviewed by O'Connor et al., 2019), mammals (e.g., Castro‐Prieto et al., 2011; Gigliotti et al., 2021; Huang et al., 2019), fish (reviewed by Yamaguchi & Dijkstra, 2019) and reptiles (e.g., Pearson et al., 2017). Generally, higher MHC diversity enables a population to present a more diverse range of antigens, and hence, on an individual level, is related to higher fitness (Worley et al., 2010) and higher mating success (Kamiya et al., 2014).…”