Genetic polymorphism of properdin factor B (BF) in Chinese patients with two types of diabetes mellitus

Abstract

SummaryThe distribution of phenotypes for properdin factor B (BF) has been investigated in 50 IDDM patients and 52 NIDDM patients living in Guangzhou, southern China, using high voltage agarose gel electrophoresis followed by immunofixation. A significant decrease in the frequency of BF F positive patients (p<0.01) and an increase in the gene frequency of BF*S (p<0.005) were found in IDDM as compared to 259 normal controls. The relative risk for the BF F positive patients in IDDM was 0.15. On the other hand, no significant association was observed between BF types and NIDDM.