This thesis contains studies of the organization and evolution of the class I gene family in the murine major histocompatibility complex (the H-2 complex).
The first chapter presents the molecular characterization of the H-2dm1 mutation. The mutant gene is shown to be formed by the fusion of the 5' part of the Dd gene and the 3' part of the Ld gene, with the region in between deleted.
Chapter Two describes the results of chromosome walking experiments and presents a molecular map of 500 kb of cloned DNA, which links the H-2D and Qα regions and contains five D region and eight Qα region class I genes.
Chapter Three presents the DNA sequences of the transmembrane exon from 20 class I genes, and the use of 23 low copy-number flanking-region probes to detect homology between the regions containing each gene. The sequence comparison and the hybridization patterns indicate that multiple recombinational events, notably gene duplication and gene conversion, have occurred during the evolution of this large gene family.
Chapter Four presents a rapid method of restriction site mapping of cosmids and plasmids. The method was developed due to the need of mapping a large number of clones during the course of this study.
