A NEW NON-HLA MULTIGENE FAMILY ASSOCIATED WITH THE PERB11 FAMILY WITHIN THE MHC CLASS-I REGION

In an effort to initiate steps designed to characterize the idiopathic hemochromatosis disease gene, the HLA-A/HLA-F region where this gene is in disequilibrium linkage with some polymorphic markers has been ov erlapped by a yeast artificial chromosome (YAC) contig. In order to ac hieve the physical mapping of these YACs and of the corresponding geno mic region, we subcloned one of the YACs involved. A computer-assisted analysis of the sequence of one subclone led to the isolation of a po tential exon that proved to belong to a new expressed messenger named HCGIX. After Southern blot analysis, the corresponding cDNA clone was found to belong to a new multigene family whose members are dispersed throughout the HLA class I region and are closely associated with memb ers of another recently described multigene family designated PERB11. The data reported here suggest that these two multigene families form a cluster that have been dispersed together throughout the telomeric p art of the major histocompatibility complex and have been involved in the genesis of this human class I region.