CD99 and the Chicken Alloantigen D Blood System †

The chicken D blood system is one of 13 alloantigen systems found on chicken red blood cells. Classical recombinant studies located the D blood system on chicken chromosome 1, but the candidate gene was unknown. Multiple resources were utilized to identify the chicken D system candidate gene, including genome sequence information from both research and elite egg production lines for which D system alloantigen alleles were reported, and DNA from both pedigree and non-pedigree samples with known D alleles. Genome-wide association analyses using a 600 K or a 54 K SNP chip plus DNA from independent samples identified a strong peak on chicken chromosome 1 at 125–131 Mb (GRCg6a). Cell surface expression and the presence of exonic non-synonymous SNP were used to identify the candidate gene. The chicken CD99 gene showed the co-segregation of SNP-defined haplotypes and serologically defined D blood system alleles. The CD99 protein mediates multiple cellular processes including leukocyte migration, T-cell adhesion, and transmembrane protein transport, affecting peripheral immune responses. The corresponding human gene is found syntenic to the pseudoautosomal region 1 of human X and Y chromosomes. Phylogenetic analyses show that CD99 has a paralog, XG, that arose by duplication in the last common ancestor of the amniotes.