Determination of granulocyte-specific antigens on neutrophil Fc gamma receptor IIIb by PCR-preferential homoduplex formation assay, and gene frequencies in the Japanese population

Objectives: Granulocyte-specific antigens play an important role in provoki ng immune neutropenia and transfusion reactions. We developed a new DNA-typ ing method, PCR-preferential homoduplex formation assay (PHFA), to determin e granulocyte-specific antigens on the neutrophil Fc gamma receptor lllb (F cyRlllb, CD16b), namely the NA1, NA2, and SH antigens and their gene freque ncies in the Japanese population. materials and Methods: Four hundred unrel ated healthy Japanese blood donors were typed using PCR-PHFA. To confirm th e accuracy of the results of Fc gamma RlllB genotyping using PCR-PHFA, PCR- sequence-specific primer(SSP) typing and PCR-restriction fragment length po lymorphism (RFLP) typing were carried out in another 20 samples for compari son. Results: The results of PCR-PHFA typing agreed well with other methods . The frequencies of the Fc gamma RlllB alleles were 62.2, 37.8, 0 and 0% f or NA1, NA2, SH, and 'NA-null', respectively. Conclusion: The PCR-PHFA meth od can be semi-automated easily with computer-based assignment and is suita ble for typing both small and large numbers of samples. In the Japanese pop ulation, the frequency of NA1 is about double that in Caucasians (32.5%), a nd the SH allele is rare. Copyright (C) 1999 S. Karger AG. Basel.