Figure 5.

Schematic presentation of MHC structures among representative mammal species. Bovine and ovine MHC is interrupted by a long piece of non-MHC insertion that divided class II into IIa and IIb subregions. The red, blue, and green color stands for MHC Class I, Class III, and Class II, respectively. The grey color gradient represents the extended Class II region. The order of loci in the extended Class II region of bovine and ovine is in an opposite orientation compared to that of human, chimpanzees, and mouse. Dash line marks the break point of a hypothetical chromosome inversion. Dashed circles indicate the hypothetical chromosome looping and the subsequent crossover occurred during the evolution of ruminants. The drawing is not to the scale.