Plant & Animal Genomes XIV Conference

January 14-18, 2006
Town & Country Convention Center
San Diego, CA

Preliminary Analysis Of The Genomic Sequence Of The Horse MHC

Christopher Childers¹ , Ashley Gustafson-Seabury¹ , Krista Fritz¹ , Robert Gonzales² , Loren Skow¹

¹  College of Veterinary Medicine, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843 USA

²  Samuel Roberts Noble foundation, 2510 Sam Noble Parkway, Ardmore, OK, 73410 USA

The major histocompatibility complex (MHC) occurs in the genomes of all chordates and contains many genes involved in the processes of innate or acquired immunity. The equine MHC (ELA) consists of tightly linked genes and gene families organized much as in the human MHC (HLA) but significantly smaller in size. To better understand the organization and gene content of ELA, we used a contig of overlapping BAC clones to identify a minimum tiling path for shotgun sequencing of ELA. The tiling path included 23 BAC clones, spanning all three regions of ELA. Subclone libraries were constructed for each BAC from sheared DNA, and then sequenced to an average 7X coverage. This report will describe the gene content and preliminary assembly of the ELA genomic sequence, including the repositioning of a class I BAC that had been initially assigned to the ELA class II region.
(Supported by grants to L.C.S from the Link Endowment for Equine Research College of Veterinary Medicine, Texas A&M University).