Search

The majority of Miaos, Bouyeis, and Shuis are distributed in the Guizhou province of southwest China. They live within vast areas, while each ethnicity lives in individual concentrated communities in small areas. Their origin, migration, and relationship have long been interesting to anthropologists. In the present study, polymorphism of HLA-A, -B, and -C genes was investigated using the sequencing-based typing method in the Miao, Bouyei, and Shui from Guizhou, southwest China. Generally, Miao, Bouyei, and Shui share the most high-frequency alleles, suggesting that these three ethnic groups might be subject to intensive gene exchange because of their close location. However, it appears that some alleles distribute ethnic-specifically for each ethnicity. The dendrogram constructed according to the neighbor-joining method demonstrates that Miao, Bouyei, and Shui cluster together and form a branch with other southern Chinese ethnic groups, indicating that Miao, Bouyei, and Shui are three genetically close ethnic groups and inherit more characteristics of southern Chinese populations. The study will increase our understanding of the HLA polymorphism in Chinese populations.

HLA-A, -B, and -C alleles were genotyped by sequencing-based typing (SBT) in 102 unrelated ethnic Mongolian individuals living in Inner Mongolia and 110 Hui individuals inhabiting the Qihai plateau in Northern China. In all, 28 HLA-A, 49 HLA-B, and 27 HLA-C alleles in Mongolians and 29 HLA-A, 41 HLA-B, and 27 HLA-C alleles in Hui were detected in this study. A*24G1, A*110101/1121N and A*02G1 are the three most frequent HLA-A alleles both in Mongolians and Hui. At the HLA-B locus, only B*51G1 was found with a frequency of more than 10% in Hui. Cw*070201G1 is the most common HLA-C allele both in Mongolian and Hui. The most frequent HLA-A:C:B, HLA-A:C, and HLA-C:B haplotypes are A*330301-Cw*030201/030202-B*5801, A*330301-Cw*030201/030202, and Cw*030201/030202-B*5801 in Mongolian and A*0207/0215N-Cw*010201/010202-B*4601, A*02G1-Cw*070201G1, and Cw*010201/010202-B*4601 in Hui, respectively. The genetic distance (GD) estimated according to HLA-A, -B, and -C allele frequency indicates that Mongolian and Hui have the closest relationship, and both are closer to Northern Han rather than Southern Han, suggesting that the two ethnicities might have been subjected to intensive gene exchange with Northern Han in history. The dendrogram based on the GD measurements further demonstrates that Mongolian and Hui cluster as a branch with Northern Han Chinese and Northeast Asians. Our results may lead to better understanding of the origins and relationships of Chinese ethnic groups and provide the genetic background for disease association studies.