MOLECULAR-GENETICS OF CHIMPANZEE RH-RELATED GENES - THEIR RELATIONSHIP WITH THE R-C-E-F BLOOD-GROUP SYSTEM, THE CHIMPANZEE COUNTERPART OF THE HUMAN RHESUS SYSTEM

As the chimpanzee R-C-E-F blood group system appears to be the chimpan zee counterpart of the human Rhesus (RH) system, we have tried to dete rmine whether chimpanzee Rh-like genes encode R-C-E-F-related proteins . Chimpanzee genomic DNA, digested by any of eight endonucleases and h ybridized with three Rh exon-specific probes, exhibits a high degree o f polymorphism. Analysis of DNA from unrelated individuals of differen t R-C-E-F types revealed that the presence of some restriction fragmen ts is correlated with particular R-C-E-F types. The cosegregation of t hese fragments with R-C-E-F haplotypes was confirmed by family studies . Oligonucleotides complementary to regions flanking human exons were used as PCR primers on chimpanzee DNA; the resulting amplified fragmen ts were identical in size to their human counterparts. Moreover, the n ucleotide sequences of the fragments present a high degree of similari ty to the corresponding human regions.