Abstract
Objective To determine the frequency and distribution of ABO and Rh (D) antigens and, additionally, investigate gene diversity and the structure of Mexican populations. Materials and Methods Blood groups were tested in 271,164 subjects from 2014 to 2016. The ABO blood group was determined by agglutination using the antibodies anti-A, Anti-B, and Anti-D for the Rh factor, respectively. Results The overall distribution of ABO and Rh (D) groups in the population studied was as follows: O: 61.82%; A: 27.44%; B: 8.93%; and AB: 1.81%. For the Rh group, 95.58% of people were Rh (D), and 4.42% were Rh (d). Different distributions of blood groups across regions were found; additionally, genetic analysis revealed that the IO and ID allele showed an increasing trend from the north to the center, while the IA and Id allele tended to increase from the center to the north. Also, we found more gene diversity in both loci in the north compared with the center, suggesting population structure in Mexico. Conclusion This work could help health institutions to identify where they can obtain blood products necessary for medical interventions. Moreover, this piece of information contributes to the knowledge of the genetic structure of the Mexican populations which could have significant implications in different fields of biomedicine.
Highlights
More than a century has passed since the discovery of ABO system by Karl Landsteiner in 1901; this knowledge has contributed to the understanding of some mechanisms basis of heredity, and today it still has a great conceptual and clinical interest [1]; blood antigens had been related to predisposing individuals to some diseases like cancer, diabetes, infectious diseases, and heart illnesses [2,3,4] or protecting individuals against some diseases such as malaria and diabetes [5, 6]
We evidenced regional differences of the blood groups distribution; we suspect that these differences could be a result of differentiation between regions; according to this, we studied the genetic structure of the population by using the ABO and D loci as genetic markers
Differentiation in Mexican populations was found among regions analyzed; a higher heterozygosity and gene diversity were observed in the north and west; in the east and southcenter we found low heterozygosity and gene diversity
Summary
More than a century has passed since the discovery of ABO system by Karl Landsteiner in 1901; this knowledge has contributed to the understanding of some mechanisms basis of heredity, and today it still has a great conceptual and clinical interest [1]; blood antigens had been related to predisposing individuals to some diseases like cancer, diabetes, infectious diseases, and heart illnesses [2,3,4] or protecting individuals against some diseases such as malaria and diabetes [5, 6]. Blood antigens had been used to evaluate ethnic diversity of human populations [7], for which they have been widely studied in population genetics [8, 9]. Blood antigens play an important role in the success of transfusions and organ transplants [12]; compatibility of ABO groups between donors and recipients is desirable to avoid immune responses against allograft and reducing the use of immunosuppressive therapies. The main challenge is to understand how to promote tolerant immune responses against allograft tissues; different factors such as age, viral serology, and gender had been studied to identify their relationship with allograft rejection. Molecular biology has taken great importance to identify genetic variants present in several ethnic groups that could play an important role in the success of allograft transplants between donors and recipients [18]
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