Isolation of low molecular mass polypeptide complementary DNA clones from primitive vertebrates. Implications for the origin of MHC class I-restricted antigen presentation.

Proteasomes are the multisubunit proteases thought to be involved in the generation of peptides presented by MHC class I molecules. When cells are stimulated with IFN-gamma, two MHC encoded subunits, LMP2 and LMP7, are incorporated into the proteasomal complex, presumably by displacing the housekeeping subunits, designated Y and X, respectively. These changes in the subunit composition appear to facilitate class I-mediated Ag presentation, presumably bu altering the cleavage specificities of the proteasome. Here we show that the cartilaginous fish, the most primitive class of vertebrates in which the MHC has been identified, have both LMP7 and X genes. Interestingly, nurse sharks, a member of the cartilaginous fish, appear to have two LMP7 genes, one encoding a typical LMP7 subunit and the other encoding a less typical one. In contrast, only cDNA clones with residues characteristic of X were identified in hagfishes and lampreys, the two extant members of the jawless fish in which no MHC has been identified. Pairwise amino acid sequence comparison and phylogenetic tree analysis showed that the subunits encoded by these clones were nearly equidistant from LMP7 and X, suggesting that the LMP7 gene might have emerged after the appearance of the jawless fish. Sequence comparison of the LMP7 and X/X-like subunits isolated from various vertebrate species showed that, unlike the X/X-like subunit, the LMP7 subunit displays a striking interspecies sequence variability in the vicinity of its catalytic site.