Allelic polymorphism in MHC class IIB in four populations of Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar)

We sequenced exon 2 of the MHC class II B gene in Atlantic salmon from the Baltic Sea and identified 17 different exon 2 alleles among 22 different restriction fragment length polymorphism haplotypes. The sequences differed at between I and 34 bases. Two different tests were used to estimate the imp...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Immunogenetics
Main Authors: Langefors, Åsa, Lohm, Jakob, von Schantz, Torbjörn
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Springer 2001
Subjects:
Online Access:https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/145744
https://doi.org/10.1007/s002510100329
Description
Summary:We sequenced exon 2 of the MHC class II B gene in Atlantic salmon from the Baltic Sea and identified 17 different exon 2 alleles among 22 different restriction fragment length polymorphism haplotypes. The sequences differed at between I and 34 bases. Two different tests were used to estimate the importance of recombination in the generation of new alleles. Recombination events appear to have occurred between three and nine times. Only two pairs of sequences differed by less than five nucleotides', minimizing the importance of point mutations for generating new alleles. Phylogenetic analysis showed that sequences did not cluster according to populations, and genetic distances between populations were small compared to those obtained by allele frequency data. These results, together with the similarity found between exon 2 sequences from Baltic salmon and Norwegian salmon, indicate that all of the identified alleles were present in the ancient salmon population colonizing the Baltic rivers after the last glaciation.