HLA-DRB1 and DQB1 allele distribution in the Muong population exposed to malaria in Vietnam.

The distribution of 30 HLA-DRB1 alleles in 85 individuals and of 10 HLA-DQB1 alleles in 91 individuals of the Viet Muong population was studied and compared with those of nine other Asian populations, including 103 Viet Kinh belonging to the major ethnic group in Vietnam. In terms of genetic distance, our data are consistent with a close ethnogeographic relationship between Viet Muong, Buyi and Dai Lue, two Southern Chinese ethnic groups. Conversely, these three populations are distant from the Northern Chinese population.

Mitochondrial DNA polymorphism in the Vietnamese population.

The mitochondrial DNA variation was screened in a sample of 50 unrelated individuals of the Vietnamese population originating from Hanoi. A combination of long and standard PCR and restriction endonuclease digests with the enzymes HpaI, BamHI, HaeII, MspI, AvaII and HincII were used to reveal mtDNA variation. Twenty enzyme morphs were detected, three of which (HaeII-13Viet, MspI-19Viet and MspI-20Viet) are new and are produced by a single mutational event in already known enzyme morphs.

HLA-DR and -DQB1 DNA polymorphisms in a Vietnamese Kinh population from Hanoi.

We report here the DNA polymerase chain reaction sequence-specific oligonucleotide (PCR-SSO) typing of the HLA-DR B1, B3, B4, B5 and DQB1 loci for a sample of 103 Vietnamese Kinh from Hanoi, and compare their allele and haplotype frequencies to other East Asiatic and Oceanian populations studied during the 11th and 12th International HLA Workshops. The Kinh exhibit some very high-frequency alleles both at DRB1 (1202, which has been confirmed by DNA sequencing, and 0901) and DQB1 (0301, 03032, 0501) loci, which make them one of the most homogeneous population tested so far for HLA class II in East Asia. Three haplotypes account for almost 50% of the total haplotype frequencies in the Vietnamese.