MHC

Major histocompatibility complex (MHC) is a large cluster of genes found on the short arm of chromosome 6, covering a 3.6Mb region, which has been shown to play a critical role in the development or progression of hundreds of diseases. Given its integral function in the regulation of the immune system, MHC has been targeted for a wide range of research applications, including drug R&D population evolution, paternity testing, HLA typing and organ transplant matching.

BGI and NimbleGen have developed a MHC region capture technology. This new method not only targets the traditional MHC region (3.37MB), but also targets approximately 1.6Mb of the regions surrounding MHC, providing a total of 4.97Mb and includes 8 known haplotypes.