It may be important to include the Mill phenotype in the antibody screening of sera from Chinese patients.

The MiIII (Gp.Mur) phenotype is rare among Caucasians but has a much higher incidence among some Oriental populations. In Taiwan the population is relatively heterogenous and, as expected, the incidence of the MiIII phenotype was found to vary markedly among the different ethnic groups. The highest frequencies of the MiIII phenotype were found among some of the indigenous groups, namely the Ami, Yami and Puyuma groups, being 88.4%, 34.3% and 21.2%, respectively, which are also the highest frequencies among any population group reported so far. Antibody screening cells and antibody identification panels containing the MiIII phenotype can obviously be obtained very easily from Ami blood donors and compatible blood for patients with anti-"Mia' can most easily be obtained from Chinese blood donors, except those living on the east coast.

Most blood group antigens among Chinese people are very homogeneous (e.g., D, 99.4%; K, 0%; Fya, 99.7%). The frequency of clinically significant alloantibodies detected by the authors' crossmatching was only 0.146 percent, suggesting that pretransfusion testing can be greatly simplified in Chinese populations.

No abstract

A missense mutation (A385 to T), predicting an Ile129 to Phe substitution, in the human Secretor alpha 1,2-fucosyltransferase gene was present in double dose in Lewis(a+b+) individuals, but not in Lewis(a-b+) individuals. Co-segregation of the Lewis(a+b+) phenotype with homozygosity for the mutation was also verified. These results yield a potential molecular basis for the weak Secretor allele (Sew) accounting for the Lewis(a+b+) phenotype.