The allelic distribution of human leukocyte antigen (HLA) class I genes (HLA-A, HLA-B, and HLA-Cw) of the population from the State of Pernambuco in Northeastern Brazil was studied in a sample of 101 healthy unrelated individuals. Low to medium resolution HLA class I typing was performed using polymerase chain reaction-amplified DNA hybridized to sequence specific primers (PCR-SSPs). Twenty allele groups were detected for HLA-A, 28 for HLA-B, and 14 for HLA-Cw. The most frequent alleles were HLA-A*02(0.2871), HLA-B*15(0.1238), and HLA-Cw*04(0.2277), and the most frequent genotypes were A*02/A*02(0.0990), B*15/B*15(0.0594), and Cw*04/Cw*04 and Cw*07/Cw*07, both with a frequency of 0.0792. The observed heterozygosity for the studied loci was 79.21% for HLA-A, 87.13% for HLA-B, and 77.23% for HLA-Cw. The most frequent haplotype was A*02-Cw*04-B*35(0.0485), which is also present in Western European, Amerindian, and Brazilian Mulatto populations, but absent in African populations. Taken together, these data corroborate the historic anthropological evidences of the origin of the Northeastern Brazilian population from Pernambuco.

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Samples of venous blood were collected using the anticoagulant ACD (citric acid 0.038 M; tribasic sodium citrate 0.075 M; dextrose 0.033 M), from 247 non-related, healthy individuals from the population of the State of Rio Grande do Norte, in Northeastern Brazil. The DNA was extracted by rapid mini salting-out and digestion with proteinase K (1). The PCR was performed in a Perkin-Elmer 2400 thermal cycler, using amplification protocols described in Promega Manual (Madison, WI). The amplified products underwent electrophoresis in a denaturing polyacrylamide gel in a manual sequencer from Amershan Pharmacia (SQ3 Sequencer). The statistical analysis was performed using the Genetic Data Analysis (2) and the PowerStat (3) softwares. The complete dataset is available in www.nlink.com.br/mauricio.

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One hundred thirty-four unrelated Northeast Brazilian individuals were typed for the HPRTB, F13B, and LPL short tandem repeats (STRs). DNA was amplified by specific primers and identified by silver staining of polyacrylamide gels. The allelic frequencies of these loci were in agreement with Hardy-Weinberg proportions. The most frequent alleles were HPRTB*13, F13B*10, LPL*10. The combined probability of paternity and the discrimination power of these 3 STRs were high, permitting their utilization for forensic science purposes.