Exon 2 of the Ovar-DR gene is known to encode the MHC outer domain (alpha or beta chain) that forms the binding area to antigens presented. The study was aimed at analysing exon 2 Ovar -DRB1 gene polymorphism in Polish Heath Sheep and Polish Lowland Sheep (Żelazna variety). A total of 101 and 99 ewes of the respective breeds were included in this study. We identified 65 different haplotypes in Polish Heath Sheep and 68 in Polish Lowland Sheep. The PCR-RFLP method and PCR products sequencing made it possible to identify two new sequences of exon 2 Ovar-DRBl gene (AY230000 and AY248695). A distinct polymorphism in the exon 2 sequence presents possibilities for immune response toward a great variety of pathogens.
Ammer H, Schwaiger F-W, Kammerbauer C, Gomolka M, Arriens A, Lazary S, Epplen JT, 1992. Exonic polymorphism vs intronic simple repeat hypervariability in MHC-DRB genes. Immunogenetics 35: 332-340.
Andersson L, 1996. The major histocompatibility complex region of domestic animal species. Schook LB, Lamont SJ, eds. CRC Press: 1-15.
Escayg AP, Hickford JGH, Montgomery GW, Dodds KG, Bullock DW, 1996. Polymorphism at the ovine major histocompatibility complex class II loci. Anim Genet 27: 305-312.
Gish W, States DJ, 1993. Identification of protein-coding regions by database similarity search. Nature Genetics 3: 266 - 272.
Griesinger IB, 1997. Vergleichende Darstellung von DNA-Varianten im DRB-Gen des MHCs bei Schaf- und Ziegenrassen verschiedener Regionen. Thesis. Institute for Animal Husbandry and Animal Breeding, University of Hohenheim, Stuttgart, Germany.
Gutierrez-Espeleta GA, Hederick PW, Kalinowski ST, Garrigan D, Boyce WM, 2001. Is the decline of desert bighorn sheep from infectious disease the result of low MHC variation? Heredity 86: 439-450.
Jugo B, Vicario A, 2000. Single-strand conformation polymorphism and sequence polymorphism of Mhc-DRB in Latxa and Karrantzar sheep: implications for Caprinae phylogeny. Immunogenetics 51: 887-897.
Kostia S, Kantanen J, Kolkkala M, Varvio S-L, 1998. Applicability of SSCP analysis for MHC genotyping: fingerprinting of Ovar-DRBl exon 2 alleles from Finnish and Russian breeds. Anim Genet 29: 453-455.
Sambrook J, Fritsch EF, Maniatis T, 1989. Molecular cloning: A laboratory manual. 2nd edn. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, NY, USA.
Schwaiger FW, Weyers E, Buitkamp J, Ede AJ, Crawford A, Epplen JT, 1994. Interdependent MHC-DRB exon-plus-intron evolution in ariodactyls. Mol Biol Evol 11: 239-249.