The heritage of pathogen pressures and ancient demography in the human innate-immunity CD209/CD209L region.

ABSTRACT: The innate immunity system constitutes the first line of host defense against pathogens. Two closely related innate immunity genes, CD209 and CD209L, are particularly interesting because they directly recognize a plethora of pathogens, including bacteria, viruses, and parasites. Both genes, which result from an ancient duplication, possess a neck region, made up of seven repeats of 23 amino acids each, known to play a major role in the pathogen-binding properties of these proteins. To explore the extent to which pathogens have exerted selective pressures on these innate immunity genes, we resequenced them in a group of samples from sub-Saharan Africa, Europe, and East Asia. Moreover, variation in the number of repeats of the neck region was defined in the entire Human Genome Diversity Pane

SUBMITTER: Barreiro LB 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1271393 | biostudies-literature | 2005 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature