LEWIS GENOTYPING BY THE PCR-RFLP METHOD IN A JAPANESE POPULATION AND ITS EVALUATION IN FORENSIC ANALYSIS

Lewis phenotyping of red blood cells has many problems such as the inf luence of many biological conditions, the change during the period fro m newborn to early childhood and mistyping by non-specific anti-Lewis antibodies. Therefore, it would be useful to determine the Lewis genot ype. Recently a method of Le-genotyping by PCR-RFLP was established. W e determined the frequen cies of Lewis genotypes in a Japanese populat ion and discuss the applicability to paternity tests and other forensi c applications. The gene frequencies of Le, le1 and 1e2 in the Japanes e population studied were 0.7032, 0.2358 and 0.0610 respectively. Out of 12 paternity cases where paternity was excluded by other markers, 3 alleged fathers could also be excluded by Lewis genotyping. The genot ype from organs of a fetus from a 3-month pregnancy was Le/Le. The det ermination of Lewis genotypes could play a useful role as a genetic ma rker in paternity tests and forensic analyses.