HLA ANTIGENS IN AMERINDIAN GROUPS OF 2 DIFFERENT LINGUISTIC FAMILIES FROM COLOMBIA

Serological HLA types (A, B, C, DR and De loci) were studied in five d ifferent Indian tribes (Cubeo, Tucano, Coreguaje, Embera and Noanama) belonging to two distinct linguistic families. For all the MHC loci, t he range of variation among the five tribes was enormous. Two tribes, Cubeo and Tucano, showed a wide spectrum of antigenic specificities wh ich seemed to be due to admixture from non-tribal groups, while in the other three tribes the polymorphisms of various HLA loci showed restr icted distributions. The gene frequency data, when converted to a kins hip matrix and a two-dimensional eigenvector plot, indicated that memb ers of the same linguistic family tend to have greater genetic affinit y.