Transcriptional analysis of the 69-kb sequence centromeric to HLA-J: a dense and complex structure of five genes

Performed within the framework of the sequencing of the 356-kb MHC class I distal region, systematic bioinformatic annotation and preliminary experiments conducted on the whole sequence indicate a high level and a complex pattern of expression. In this paper, we analyze a particular stretch of 69 kb centromeric to the HLA-J gene, in which we identify 21 different mRNAs mainly expressed in testis, and characterize five different transcription units, HZFw, HZFc, HCGV, HTEX6, and HTEX4. These tightly linked genes form a cluster conserved between human and mouse and displaying a high gene density of about one every 14 kb. Alternative splicing processes are observed for all the genes, together with an alternative polyadenylation event for gene HTEX4, sense/antisense mRNA overlaps for HZFw and HZFc, for HZFw and HCGV at their 3' end, and for HTEX6 and HTEX4 at their 5' end. This complex genomic structure suggests a mechanism of coregulation by cis-interaction in gene expression.