Striking sequence similarity over almost 100 kilobases of human and mouse T-cell receptor DNA

TLDR: In this comparison, a very high level of organizational and noncoding sequence similarity is identified in contrast to previous findings in the β–globin gene cluster, which begins to question the notion that much of the chromosomal non–c coding sequence is junk.

Abstract: We report here the comparative DNA sequence analysis of nearly 100 kilobases of contiguous DNA in the C delta to C alpha region of the alpha/delta T cell receptor loci (TCRAC/TCRDC) of mouse and man. This analysis--the largest genomic sequence comparison so far--provides new insights into the functions of the T cell receptor genes as well as the surrounding chromosome structure through the identification of actively conserved DNA sequences. In this comparison we have identified a very high level of organizational and noncoding sequence similarity (approximately 71%) in contrast to previous findings in the beta-globin gene cluster. This observation begins to question the notion that much of the chromosomal non-coding sequence is junk.