Concerted evolution of the mouse immunoglobulin gamma chain genes.
The nucleotide sequences of the immunoglobulin heavy-chain constant region genes of mouse, C gamma 3, C gamma 1, C gamma 2b and C gamma 2a, together with that of a human equivalent C gamma 4 were compared. All the six pairs of genes within the mouse C gamma gene family contain DNA segments that exhibit marked homology, whereas no such segmental homology was found in interspecies comparisons. This result indicates that the four C gamma genes of the mouse evolved concertedly by exchanging parts of their genetic information with each other either by gene conversion or by double unequal crossing-over. Another example of such concerted evolution was found in gene regions encoding membrane domains of the mouse C gamma chains. We also searched for such segmental homologies in other mammalian C gamma gene families and found at least two more examples in man and guinea-pig. In the mouse C gamma gene family, the silent positions of an exon encoding the third domain of C gamma chains show much greater divergence in sequence than other regions, indicating that the genetic information encoded by this gene region was least scrambled during recent evolution. A phylogenetic tree constructed from the nucleotide differences of this exon demonstrates that at least two C gamma genes had already existed before mammalian radiation. Based on these results, evolution of mammalian C gamma gene families is discussed.
D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D001483:Base Sequence; D005075:Biological Evolution; D005796:Genes; D006801:Humans; D007127:Immunoglobulin Constant Regions / Q000235:genetics*; D007143:Immunoglobulin Heavy Chains / Q000235:genetics*; D007142:Immunoglobulin gamma-Chains / Q000235:genetics*; D007136:Immunoglobulins / Q000235:genetics*; D051379:Mice; D013045:Species Specificity
D007127:Immunoglobulin Constant Regions; D007143:Immunoglobulin Heavy Chains; D007142:Immunoglobulin gamma-Chains; D007136:Immunoglobulins