Clustering of diverse replicated sequences in the MHC. Evidence for en bloc duplication.

The MHC contains clusters of polymorphic duplicated genes and gene sequences. It has been thought that these duplicated genes and sequences have arisen from single gene duplications. We compared the cloned region between TNF and HLA-B with the region in close proximity to HLA-A using sequence analysis and DNA hybridization. The results indicate that several sequences existing in the region centromeric of HLA-B are also present in close proximity to HLA-A. These include sequences belonging to the P5, BAT1, and PERB11 gene families as well as HLA class I gene sequences. Interestingly, when the two regions of approximately 200 kilobases are compared, the replicated sequences are organized similarly but in an inverted fashion suggesting the existence of an historical inverted en bloc duplication. Thus, we propose that the origin of these MHC gene clusters involves several mechanisms. In addition to single gene replication, a long-range duplication of a genomic block must have occurred. It is possible that a block at the telomeric end of the MHC represents a basic functional genomic unit conserved and duplicated en bloc.