MICA Polymorphism in a Population From North Morocco, Metalsa Berbers, Using Sequence-Based Typing

Allelic diversity of MICA gene and MICA/HLA-B haplotypic variation in a population of the Murcia region in southeastern Spain

“…However our population also shows allele frequencies similar to those in populations of Portuguese and Spanish origin [23][24][25]. In this sense, comparison and analysis of MICA allele frequencies among populations of Murcian, non-Murcian Spanish [23,25], and Portuguese [24] origins show a closer relationship among all of these three populations in comparison with other populations from African origin [22,32,35] (data not shown).…”

“…Eleven alleles showed frequencies of Ͻ1% (e.g., MICA*005, *007, *017, *023, *030, *033, *046, *050, and *052). Uncommon alleles, such as MICA*030, have also been observed in African Americans [28], and MICA*046 has been noted in Berbers [32]. Curiously, the MICA*052 allele was found to be frequent in a Thai population and to be associated with HLA-B*13 [33].…”

Distribution of MICA haplotypes in a Chinese Han population

“…A wide allelic distribution including 16 different MICA alleles was observed, among which MICA *010, MICA*002:01, MICA*008:01, and MICA*019 were predominant. Comparison of the allelic frequencies for MICA between our cohort and other populations, including Asians, Africans, and Caucasians [10,[13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21], indicated different distributions (Table 2). Whereas MICA*019 was observed as a high-frequency allele (14.93%), this allele was detected in only 1 to 3% of individuals from other populations.…”

High frequencies of alleles MICA*020 and MICA*027 in Amerindians and evidence of positive selection on exon 3

“…12 If we add the alleles with low affinity, the ones with valine at position 129, the summed frequency of alleles with altered function mentioned above achieves 75-80% in the Morocco population, 35 Japanese, 20 Welsh 31 and EuroAmericans 33 and is of at least 36% (in Guarani Kaiowá population). However, the functional implications of the binding affinity between MICA and its receptor are still unknown.…”