PhD awarded to Jeroen Blokhuis at Utrecht University

On 22 June 2011 Jeroen Blokhuis was awarded his PhD after defending his thesis entitled ‘Complexity and evolution of KIR genes in rhesus macaques’.

KIR receptors are present on specialised white blood cells, so-called ‘ natural killer’-cells. These cells are involved in immuneresponses against virusses and cancer, reactivity of the immune system, and play an important role during pregnancy.

The combination of KIR-genes present in an individual determines to a large extent the acivity of natural killer cells.

The rhesus macaque is used in biomedical research e.g. in the fields of  infectious diseases and of auto-immunity. It is therefore relevant to study to what extent the KIR-gene system in the rhesus macaque during evolution has changed or remained the same compared to humans.

At the department of ‘Comparative Genetics and Refinement’ of the BPRC Blokhuis has determined the DNA-sequence of all KIR-genes in a panel of individuals using a variety of genetic techniques. He has established that this is a very variable gene system, and that this is probably due to selective pressure during evolutionary selection  and caused by multiple factors. Finally, one of the main conclusions is that, similar to humans, this system is characterised by variation in gene copy numbers (diversity), and by the large extent of variations in these genes (polymorphismes).