HLA-I & II Linkage Disequilibrium Ref.'s?

[Marc Buhler]

Victor DeFilippis wrote:
> 
> Can anyone provide a reference(s) which discusses linkage diequilibrium
> between human leukocyte antigen class I & II regions?  There seems to be a
> lot of stuff out there regarding within classes but not between.
> 
> Thanks in advance!

A good recent review paper on MHC evolution is:
   Klein, J., and A. Sato (1998). Birth of the Major Histocomptibility
Complex. Scand. J. Immunol. 47:199-209.

They argue that i) the "class III" regions *really* are not part of the
MHC, and ii) the evolution of the peptide-binding domain was by exon
shuffling rather than alteration of an immunoglobulin-superfamily-type
gene. It isn't exactly the LD stuff you requested, but it does put the
region in an evolutionary context. 

There are several recent papers in "Immunogenetics" on shared class I
alleles across different primate species - interesting as some are
several million years diverged, and also a point on the stability of
this region. 

For a *reason* why such allelic variation is compressed into so few
allels, see:

Nowak, M.A., K. Tarczy-Hornoch, and J.M. Austyn 1998. The optimal number
of major histocompatibility complex molecules in an individual. Proc.
Natl. Acad. Sci. (USA) 89:10896-10899.

I'm sure there are better refs near at hand for LD as in your question,
so I'll keep my eye out and will post them if they jump out at me.

(signed) marc
..... delete the obvious bit from the address to e-mail me!