International Mammalian Genome Society

C5 Of Mice and Men: Comparing Immune Receptor Loci

Leroy Hood. University of Washington

The sequences of the human and marine a/d and ß T cell receptor loci, as well as most of both major histocompatibility complexes, have been determined. These sequences provide fundamental insight into the organization, biology, regulation, species variation and evolution of these important loci. They also provide insights into the architecture of chromosomal features (e.g. variation in gene density, variation in speed density, syntenic relationships, etc.). These loci also clearly pose striking problems for sequence annotation, if as much biology as possible is to be integrated into the complete annotation of these sequences. These features will be discussed, as will the power of comparative genomics.