STRUCTURE OF THE HUMAN TYPE-I INTERFERON GENE-CLUSTER DETERMINED FROMA YAC CLONE CONTIG

A map of the type-I interferon gene cluster located on the short arm o f human chromosome 9 (9p) has been constructed using a contig of YAC c lones. This map contains 26 interferon (IFN) genes and pseudogenes, an d it accounts for all, except one, of the IFN sequences previously rep orted by other authors, plus a new IFNW pseudogene. The most distal ge ne on 9p is IFNB, and the most proximal one is IFNWP19. The direction of transcription for the 20 most distal IFN sequences is toward the te lomere and for the 6 most proximal sequences, toward the centromere. S everal regions of the cluster show evidence of ancestral duplication e vents. Some of these events may be explained by unequal crossing over between adjacent tandem genes. The location of several breakpoints wit hin the cluster, from deletions associated with leukemias and gliomas, was also determined. (C) Academic Press, Inc.