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Letter

Nature Genetics 39, 1114–1119 (1 September 2007) | doi:10.1038/ng2077

Global diversity and evidence for coevolution of KIR and HLA

Richard M Single , Maureen P Martin , Xiaojiang Gao , Diogo Meyer , Meredith Yeager , Judith R Kidd , Kenneth K Kidd & Mary Carrington

The killer immunoglobulin-like receptor (KIR) gene cluster shows extensive genetic diversity, as do the HLA class I loci, which encode ligands for KIR molecules. We genotyped 1,642 individuals from 30 geographically distinct populations to examine population-level evidence for coevolution of these two functionally related but unlinked gene clusters.