Three novel MICB alleles

The two members of the MHC class I chain-related (MIC) gene family, MICA an d MICB, have been shown by several investigators to be polymorphic. Most of the research effort so far has focussed on MICA, so less is known about th e extent of polymorphism in the MICB gene. Here we report three novel MICE alleles, which had been detected in the course of an SSOP typing study on a large cohort of cell lines. Two of these alleles are formed by a non-synon ymous nucleotide variation. Our results confirm previous findings that most of the polymorphisms in the MICE gene, as in MICA, are coding and suggest that the extent of polymorphism in the two genes might be comparable.