NA antigen frequencies in the Tunisian population

The biallelic NA antigen system is of special interest as the NA antigens a re frequent targets of neutrophil antibodies, causing alloimmune neonatal n eutropenia, blood transfusion reactions, and chronic benign autoimmune neut ropenia in infancy. Neutrophils isolated from the peripheral blood of 119 u nrelated individuals at the National Blood Center were phenotyped for NA1 a nd NA2 using a granulocyte immunofluorescence assay. A subsequent analysis of the phenotyping study showed that the NA1 and NA2 antigen frequencies we re 0.529 and 0.865 respectively, and that the estimated NA1 and NA2 gene fr equencies were 0.313 and 0.632 respectively. In conclusion, it was determin ed that the Tunisian population is of Caucasian origin. However, to validat e this finding, further investigations are necessary. (C) 2000 Editions sci entifiques et medicales Elsevier SAS.