Bisalbuminaemia Birmingham - A New Variant in an Indian Family

Abstract

Bisalbuminaemia has rarely been reported in races of the Indian subcontinent. The variant described in a native of the Punjab is shown to have a similar electrophoretic mobility to albumin Kashmir but different dye binding properties. The dye binding properties are also different from other albumin variants where such studies have been reported.

The same substitution, glutamic acid----lysine at position 501, occurs in three alloalbumins of Asiatic origin: albumins Vancouver, Birmingham, and Adana.

“…Lyophilized serum (2'ml) from the index case of albumin Birmingham was provided by R. Jefferis (Birmingham, U.K.). In both instances inheritance had been proved, the donor was heterozygous, and the variant had previously been described (12,13). By use of §Present address: Corporate Research and Development Laboratory, Toa Nenryo Kogyo K. K., Iruma-gun, Saitama-ken, Japan 354.…”

“…The paternal greatgrandparents had migrated to Fiji from an unknown part of India but spoke Urdu, which is the official language of Pakistan and is widely used in India. Albumin Birmingham was present in an Indian family from the Jullander district of the Punjab (13). No family data are available for the single individual with albumin Adana.…”

THE GENETICS OF HUMAN SERUM ALBUMIN††This work was supported by USPHS Grants CA-06551, RR-05539 and CA-06927 from the National Institutes of Health, and by an appropriation from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

“…These new variants include albumin Kuala Lumpur, (34) albumin Birmingham, (39) albumin Boal, (73) albumin Luarca (62) and an unnamed variant discovered among Japanese emigres to Hawaii. Determining whether these variants are new or not requires the extensive comparisons just described.…”

“…Albumin Pushtoon is electrophoretically distinguishable from Kashmir (50) and albumin Birmingham shows different binding properties, but not different electrophoretic mobility from albumin Kashmir. (39) There are then three variants involved, Pushtoon, Birmingham and Kashmir. Weitkamp et al (5(K81) have suggested that albumin Kashmir may be a low-frequency polymorphism in Indo-Dravidian populations.…”