Molecular Biology and Evolution of Blood Group and MHC Antigens in Primates

Zoologists have categorized primates into a single order, and no one doubts today that they share a common ancestry. Humans and Old and New World non­ human primate species, from the lemurs of Madagascar to the African anthro­ poid apes, represent diverging branches of an evolutionary common trunk. Along with species-specific characters, all primates have retained a number of ancestral traits, relics of their common origin. The comparative study of these species-specific and ancestral traits mak