A highly conserved major histocompatibility complex class I-related gene in mammals

We report here a cDNA sequence of a murine homolog of the human major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class I-related gene, MR1. The analyses revealed unprecedentedly high conservation of MR1 in the α1 and α2 domains (corresponding to the peptide-binding domains in the classical MHC class I molecules) between human and mouse (predicted amino acid identity: 90 and 89% for the α1 and α2 domain, respectively), compared to MHC class I and other class I molecules. On the other hand, conservation in the α3 domain (73%) is comparable to those of others, suggesting domain-specific conservation of MR1. The localization of the mouse MR1 gene was determined to be chromosome 1H1, which corresponds to the human chromosomal region where the human MR1 gene is located (chromosome 1q25). High conservation of MR1 among mammals suggests that MR1 may be involved in critical conserved biological function(s).