Background
Landsteiner-Wiener (LW) is the human blood group system no. 16, which comprises 2 antithetical antigens, LWa and LWb and the high prevalence antigen LWab. LW is encoded by the Intracellular Adhesion Molecule 4 (ICAM4) gene. The ICAM4 protein is part of the Rhesus complex in the red cell membrane and is involved in cell-cell adhesion.
Methods
We developed a method to sequence the whole 1.9 kb ICAM4 gene from genomic DNA in 1 amplicon. We determined the nucleotide sequence of exons 1 to 3, the 2 introns and 402 bp 5′-UTR and 347 bp 3′-UTR in 97 Caucasian and 91 African American individuals.
Results
Seven variant ICAM4 alleles were found, distinct from the wild type ICAM4 allele (GenBank KF712272), known as LW*05 and encoding LWa. An effect of the LWa/LWb amino acid substitution on the protein structure was predicted by 2 of the 3 computational modeling programs used.
Conclusions
We describe a practical approach for sequencing and determining the ICAM4 alleles using genomic DNA. LW*05 is the ancestral allele, which had also been observed in a Neandertal sample. All 7 variant alleles are immediate derivatives of the prevalent LW*05 and caused by 1 single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) in each allele. Our data were consistent with the NHLBI GO Exome Sequencing Project (ESP) and the dbSNP databases, as all SNPs had been observed before. Our study has the advantage over the other databases in that it adds haplotype (allele) information for the ICAM4 gene, clinically relevant in the field of transfusion medicine.
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