Immunology Department, Hospital Universitario Central de Asturias, Oviedo, Spain.
Adv Exp Med Biol. 2012;738:277-89. doi: 10.1007/978-1-4614-1680-7_16.
The Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC) is a genomic region that contains genes that encode proteins involved with antigen presentation and, therefore, plays an important role in the adaptive immune system. The origin of these genes was probably an ancestral MHC that appeared before the emergence of the adaptive immune system and contained genes related to immunity. The organization of MHC genes varies in different groups of vertebrates; although, there are some characteristics that are maintained in all groups, which indicates that they confer some evolutionary advantage: Organization of the genes to form clusters and genetic polymorphisms. The study of how the MHC appeared during evolution and how it is organized in different species can help us clarify what features are essential in their participation in self-nonself recognition.
主要组织相容性复合体（MHC）是一个基因组区域，其中包含编码参与抗原呈递的蛋白质的基因，因此在适应性免疫系统中起着重要作用。这些基因的起源可能是一个出现在适应性免疫系统出现之前的祖先 MHC，其中包含与免疫相关的基因。MHC 基因在不同的脊椎动物群体中的组织各不相同；尽管如此，所有群体中都存在一些特征得以保留，这表明它们赋予了一些进化优势：基因的组织形成簇和遗传多态性。研究 MHC 是如何在进化过程中出现的，以及它在不同物种中的组织方式，可以帮助我们阐明其参与自我非自我识别的必要特征。
