the importance of immune gene variability (mhc) in evolutionary ecology and conservation免疫基因变异的重要性(mhc)在进化生态学和保护.pdfVIP

Frontiers in Zoology BioMed Central Review Open Access The importance of immune gene variability (MHC) in evolutionary ecology and conservation Simone Sommer* Address: Animal Ecology Conservation, Biocentre Grindel, University of Hamburg, Martin-Luther-King-Platz 3, D-20146 Hamburg, Germany Email: Simone Sommer* - Simone.Sommer@zoologie.uni-hamburg.de * Corresponding author Published: 20 October 2005 Received: 09 March 2005 Accepted: 20 October 2005 Frontiers in Zoology 2005, 2:16 doi:10.1186/1742-9994-2-16 This article is available from: /content/2/1/16 © 2005 Sommer; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Abstract Genetic studies have typically inferred the effects of human impact by documenting patterns of genetic differentiation and levels of genetic diversity among potentially isolated populations using selective neutral markers such as mitochondrial control region sequences, microsatellites or single nucleotide polymorphism (SNPs). However, evolutionary relevant and adaptive processes within and between populations can only be reflected by coding genes. In vertebrates, growing evidence suggests that genetic diversity is particularly important at the level of the major histocompatibility complex (MHC). MHC variants