Haptoglobin and Transferrin Types in Peruvian Indians

Abstract

RECENT reports on the incidence of the serum haptoglobin types of American Indians have included observations on natives of Alaska¹, south-western United States^2,3, southern Mexico and Guatemala⁴, Venezuela⁵, and Chile³. The incidence of the Hp¹ gene, shown in Table 1, is usually higher than that found in the population of western Europe⁴ (gene frequency 0.32–0.43, mean about 0.39). In several tribes, the occurrence of Hp¹ is as frequent as that reported in the various Bantus of Africa⁴ (0.49–0.87). This finding is of particular interest when compared with the low incidence of Hp¹ (0.09–0.28) in Asiatic populations^2,6. Since genetic drift is often responsible for marked fluctuations in the concentration of given genes in comparatively isolated areas, more observations are necessary to confirm these apparent differences. We have investigated the haptoglobin (and transferrin) types of two Peruvian Indian groups.