Restricted MHC class I A locus diversity in olive and hybrid olive/yellow baboons from the Southwest National Primate Research Center

Baboons are valuable models for complex human diseases due to their genetic and physiologic similarities to humans. Deep sequencing methods to characterize full-length major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class I (MHC-I) alleles in different nonhuman primate populations were used to identify novel MHC-I alleles in baboons. We combined data from Illumina MiSeq sequencing and Roche/454 sequencing to characterize novel full-length MHC-I transcripts in a cohort of olive and hybrid olive/yellow baboons from the Southwest National Primate Research Center (SNPRC). We characterized 57 novel full-length alleles from 24 baboons and found limited genetic diversity at the MHC-I A locus, with significant sharing of two MHC-I A lineages between 22 out of the 24 animals characterized. These shared alleles provide the basis for development of tools such as MHC:peptide tetramers for studying cellular immune responses in this important animal model.