Gene diversity of chimpanzee ABO blood group genes elucidated from exon 7 sequences

Human and non-human primate ABO blood group genes show relatively large num bers of nucleotide differences. In this study, we determined exon 7 sequenc es for 10 individuals of common chimpanzee and for four individuals of bono bo to estimate nucleotide diversities among them. Sequence data showed the existence of chimpanzee specific 9-base deletion in the beginning of the ex on 7 coding region. From a phylogenetic network of exon 7 sequences of ABO blood group genes for human, common chimpanzee, bonobo and gorilla, effects of parallel substitutions and/or some kinds of convergent events are infer red in the chimpanzee lineage. We also estimated nucleotide diversities for common chimpanzee and bonobo ABO blood group genes, and these values were 0.4% and 0.2%, respectively. These values are higher than that of most huma n genes. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.