Arnaiz-Villena A, Serrano-Vela J I, Reguera R, Perez-Saborido B, Moreno E, Moscoso J
Department of Immunology, Universidad Complutense, The Madrid Regional Blood Center, Madrid, Spain.
Tissue Antigens. 2008 Mar;71(3):258-9. doi: 10.1111/j.1399-0039.2007.01000.x. Epub 2008 Jan 10.
The non-classical human leucocyte antigen (HLA) class I locus, HLA-G, shows a low protein polymorphism and a more varied DNA (eight proteins and 28 alleles). HLA-G DNA polymorphism accounts mainly for changes at third codon bases of the protein coding exons; this does not imply amino acid change in most cases. This relatively high HLA-G DNA polymorphism in comparison with their protein polymorphism suggests that evolutionary forces are acting upon HLA-G for invariance. This may be related to the immunotolerogenic function postulated for HLA-G.