Human orosomucoid (ORM) is a major binding protein for various basic drugs.
The genetic polymorphisms of ORM could be responsible for interindividual
variation in the plasma binding of basic drugs, which might influence their
effects or toxicities. The genetic polymorphisms of ORM on the Han populat
ion in Nanjing of China were analyzed by isoelectric focusing (IEF) on poly
acrylamide gels following by immunoblotting. After desialylation of sera fr
om 220 unrelated Chinese subjects, the band patterns of ORM showed that the
polymorphism of the structural locus ORM1 is controlled by three codominan
t autosomal alleles, ORM1*F1, ORM1*F2 and ORM1*S, which presented five phen
otypes, ORM1*F1, ORM1 S, ORM1 F1F2, ORM1 F1S, and ORM1 F2S. The allele freq
uencies were: ORM1*F1 = 0.7068, ORM1*F2 = 0.0182, ORM1*S = 0.2750. The resu
lts presented in this paper indicate the ORM1 locus is polymorphic and the
ORM2 locus is monomorphic in sera from the Han population in Nanjing of Chi
na. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.