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Genomics and Diversity of the Common Marmoset Monkey NK Complex^1,2

Anne Averdam^*, Heiner Kuhl, Mario Sontag, Tamara Becker, Austin L. Hughes, Richard Reinhardt^3, and Lutz Walter^3,4,*

^* Department of Primate Genetics and Primate Husbandry, German Primate Center, Göttingen, Germany; Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics, Berlin, Germany; and Department of Biological Sciences, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC 29208

The common marmoset monkey (Callithrix jacchus) is a New World primate that is increasingly used in biomedical research as a model organism. Due to the occurrence of natural bone marrow chimerism, it represents a particularly useful primate model in immunological research. In this study, we describe the genomic organization of the CD94, NKG2, and LY49L genes in the NK complex (NKC) of the common marmoset based on complete sequencing of a bacterial artificial chromosome clonal contig. This region of the marmoset NKC is 1.5 times smaller than its human counterpart, but the genes are colinear and orthologous. One exception is the activating NKG2CE gene, which is probably an ancestral form of the NKG2C- and NKG2E-activating receptor genes of humans and great apes. The two completely sequenced marmoset bacterial artificial chromosome clones are derived from distinct haplotypes, which differ by 200 sites in the overlapping sequence. Analyses of NKC genes in nine additional marmoset individuals revealed a moderate degree of polymorphism of the CD94, NKG2A, NKG2CE, and NKG2D genes. Furthermore, expression analyses identified several alternatively spliced transcripts, particularly of the CD94 gene. Several products of alternative splicing of NKC genes are highly conserved among primates. Alternative transcriptional start sites were found, but these probably do not lead to a change of the translational start site or result in longer or shorter cytoplasmic regions of these type II membrane receptors.

The costs of publication of this article were defrayed in part by the payment of page charges. This article must therefore be hereby marked advertisement in accordance with 18 U.S.C. Section 1734 solely to indicate this fact.

¹ This work was supported by the German Primate Center (to A.A., T.B., and L.W.), the Max Planck Society (to H.K., M.S., and R.R.), and the German National Genome Research Net.

² Sequences have been submitted to DDBJ/GenBank/European Molecular Biological Laboratory database and have been assigned accession numbers EF050432–EF050450.

³ R.R. and L.W. share senior authorship.

⁴ Address correspondence and reprint requests to Dr. Lutz Walter, Forschergruppe Primatengenetik, Deutsches Primatenzentrum, Kellnerweg 4, Göttingen, Germany. E-mail address: lwalter{at}gwdg.de

⁵ Abbreviations used in this paper: LRC, leukocyte receptor complex; BAC, bacterial artificial chromosome; NKC, NK complex; NKG, NK group; SNP, single nucleotide polymorphism; CRD, carbohydrate recognition domain.

⁶ The online version of this article has supplemental material.