3 HIGHLY POLYMORPHIC MICROSATELLITES AT THE HUMAN MYELIN OLIGODENDROCYTE GLYCOPROTEIN LOCUS, 100 KB TELOMERIC TO HLA-F - CHARACTERIZATION AND RELATION TO HLA HAPLOTYPES

The MOG locus, located on chromosomal bands 6p21.3-p22 and mapped abou t 100 kb telomeric to HLA-F, was isolated from cosmid ICRFc109A2434 an d shown to contain three microsatellites. These CA-repeat polymorphic markers were characterized in a sample of 173 healthy unrelated indivi duals and 84 DNAs from the HLA Workshop reference panel, by a method c ombining fluorescence labeling of PCR products and use of an automated DNA sequencer. For the three markers, frequencies of heterozygotes ar e well predicted from allele frequencies by the Hardy-Weinberg rule, w hich suggests chat problems of allele nonamplification are unlikely.Ty ping of cell lines homozygous in the HLA region allowed unambiguous de finition of 81 HLA-MOG haplotypes and showed that several HLA ancestra l haplotypes extended to the MOG region. The high degree of polymorphi sm (59%, 51%, and 81% at the three loci, respectively, and 87% at the haplotype level) makes these new markers informative for association o r linkage studies with diseases such as hemochromatosis or multiple sc lerosis, and for studies aimed at precisely delineating the site of cr ossover in chromosomes in which recombination occurred in the distal p art of che HLA class I region.