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Updated: Apr 26, 2026

A Surgical Procedure for the Administration of Drugs to the Inner Ear in a Non-Human Primate Common Marmoset Callithrix jacchus
Published on: February 27, 2018
High diversity of MIC genes in non-human primates
Alice Meyer1, Raphael Carapito, Louise Ott
1Laboratoire d'ImmunoRhumatologie Moléculaire, INSERM UMR_S1109, Plateforme GENOMAX, LabEx Transplantex, Centre de Recherche d'Immunologie et d'Hématologie. Faculté de Médecine, Fédération de Médecine Translationnelle de Strasbourg (FMTS), Université de Strasbourg, 4 Rue Kirschleger, 67085, Strasbourg, France.
Abstract:
The human MHC class I (MHC-I) chain-related genes A and B (MICA and MICB) encode stress-induced glycoproteins, ligands for the activating receptor NKG2D. They display an unusually high degree of polymorphism, next only to that of classical MHC-I. The functional relevance and selective pressure behind this peculiar polymorphism, which is quite distinct from that of classical MHC-I, remain largely unknown. This study increases the repertoire of allelic sequences determined for the MIC genes of non-human primates. Sequencing (mainly exons 2, 3, 4, 5) MIC genes of 72 Macaca fascicularis (Mafa), 63 Pan troglodytes (Patr), and 18 Gorilla gorilla (Gogo) individuals led to the identification of 35, 14, and 3 new alleles, respectively. Additionally, we confirm the existence of three independent MIC genes in M. fascicularis, i.e., Mafa-MICA, Mafa-MICB, and Mafa-MICB/A, the latter being a hybrid of Mafa-MICB and Mafa-MICA. By multiple sequence alignment and phylogenetic analysis, we further demonstrate that the present day MIC genes most likely derive from a single human MICB-like ancestral gene.
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