Asians as well as Europeans have light skin, for which no genes to date are known to be responsible. A mutation, Ala481Thr (c.G1559A), in the oculocutaneous albinism type II (OCA2) gene has approximately 70% function of the wild type allele in melanogenesis. In this study, the distribution of the mutation was investigated in a total of 2,615 individuals in 20 populations from various areas. OCA2*481Thr prevailed almost exclusively in a northeastern part of Asia. The allele frequency was highest in Buryat (0.24) in Mongolia and showed a north-south downward geographical gradient. These findings suggest that OCA2*481Thr arose in a region of low ultraviolet radiation and thereafter spread to neighboring populations.

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Finger prints of 156 Tibetan males and 150 females have been analyzed. Whorls are more abundant in Tibetan males (60.24% ) than in females (48.67% >. The index of pattern intensity shows a higher value in males (15.95) than the females (14.65).The birnanual differences (both in males and females) are not statistically significant for the occurrence of pattern on the digits of the right and left hands. However, the difference between the sexes for the occurrence of patterns on the finger balls, are statistically significant.Ridge counting was done for each h g e r . O n all fingers, Tibetan males have higher ridge-counts than females. The possible tendency for the right hands to possess higher ridge-counts cannot be demonstrated statistically.Tibetans show greater affinity with the Southern Mongoloids in the frequency distributions of pattern types on the finger balls. However, a more detailed dermatoglyphic study of all the Mongoloid populations in South East Asia, Central Asia and Far East would yield information of great value in disclosing the palmar pattern distributions among the Mongoloids.

Isoelectric focusing has revealed that human complement factor I (CFI) is controlled by two polymorphic alleles, CFI*A and CFI*B, and a few rare variant alleles. In this study the molecular basis of the CFI polymorphism was investigated in 174 Japanese. The CFI*A was divided into two suballeles, CFI*As (R201S) and CFI*Ah (R406H). CFI*Aj, a rare variant allele originating from CFI*Ah, had an additional mutation (R502L). The distribution of these three mutations and two registered SNPs was investigated in a total of 2,471 individuals in 20 populations from various areas, and six haplotypes were observed. Haplotype H3, which is characterized by CFI*As, was found only in Far East populations: the frequencies were about 0.03 in the main island of Japan and lower than 0.01 in Okinawa and Korea. Haplotype H5, characterized by CFI*Ah, prevailed almost exclusively in East Asians and was observed at the highest frequencies in southern Chinese Han and Thais. CFI*Ah must have arisen 123J Hum Genet (2008) 53:1016-1021 DOI 10.1007 in a southeastern part of Asia and thereafter have spread to neighboring populations.

The finger prints of 138 individuals belonging to the subcaste Rarhi Brahmin have been analyzed. In males whorls are more frequent in the right hand than the left, while it is just the reverse in case of loops and arches. Females, however, show higher frequency of loops and lesser frequency of whorls in the right hand than the left, while the arches are more frequent on the left hand of females than the right. Arches are found to be more frequent on the thumb in males, while among females it is found mostly in the second finger. The bimanual difference is statistically significant in both sexes. Right hands are found to be more monomorphic than left hands. Monomorphic hands are less frequent among females than males. In the digitwise occurrence of symmetrical combinations of different patterns, the trend is I11 > IV > V > I > I1 in males, and V > IV > I11 > I > I1 in females. Males show highcr ridge counts in all fingers than do females. Ridge counts are usually found to be higher in the right hand than the left. The sex difference for mean total ridge counts is significant ( t = 1.99, 0.05 > P > 0.02, d.f. = 136). The bimanual difference is statistically significant for thumbs in both sexes, while the difference for the other digits is not significant.The Rarhi Brahmin is an endogamous sub-caste of Bengal practicing gotra (clanlike organization) exogamy. They have been studied for morphological and serological characteristics by different investigators (Chattopadhyay, '67a,b; Mitra, unpublished; Bhattacharjee, '56; Das, '58; Mukerjee cf. Das, '66). As far as we are aware, there is no published report on the dermatoglyphics of the Rarhi Brahmins. Hence, the study of dermatoglyphical characteristics was felt to be important, and investigations for finger, palm, sole and toe prints were undertaken by the authors.The present paper deals with the finger dermatoglyphics of the Bengalees, while the characteristics of the sole and toe prints will be reported in a later study. The frequency of main line formulas, pattern types in various palmar configurational areas, and ridge count have been reported elsewhere (Chattopadhyay and Sharma, '66, '67a,b). MATERIAL AND METHODIn the present study, bilateral inked fingerprints of 138 unrelated individuals (100 males and 38 females) have been analyzed. The identification of patterns and ridge counts have been done according to Cummins and Midlo ('61). Chi-square (x') figures have been calculated by using Woolfs ('57) G-test, and probabilities have been determined from Fisher and Yates' table ('54). RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONTables l a and l b show the frequency of different patterns among males and females, respectively. It is observed that simple arches are more frequent than tented arches, the frequency being nearly equal in both hands of both sexes. Radial loops are found to be more frequent in the second (index) finger, a fact which has also been noted by other workers (Bhattacharjee, '55; Biswas, '57; Kumbnani, '65; Singh, '56). The frequency of radial loops is the sam...