The blood groups, serum groups, red-cell isoenzymes and haemoglobins of the Sandawe and Nyaturu of Tanzania

Abstract

Blood specimens from members of the click-speaking Sandawe tribe of Tanzania and of the adjacent Bantu-speaking Nyaturu tribe have been tested for antigens of 11 blood group systems, for variants of 3 plasma-protein systems and 9 red-cell-enzyme systems, for haemoglobin variants. The results are tabulated and gene frequencies computed. For most systems, the frequencies in the two tribes are similar to one another and, in so far as data are available, similar to the neighbouring Bantu-speaking tribes. The principal genetic difference between the Sandawe and the Nyaturu is in their frequencies of haemoglobin S and of glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase deficiency, both of which characters are several times higher in the Nyaturu than in the Sandawe; both characters are protective against falciparum malaria, and this suggests that the Nyaturu have in the past been much more strongly exposed to this infection than the Sandawe.

Some blood genetic markers of the Nuba and Hawazma tribes of Western Sudan

“…El Hassan et al (1968) has reported a frequency of 0.4949 for Hp' among the Beja. However, a lower frequency of Hpl was observed in the random sample of the Sudanese from Khartoum (0.3580): Saha et al, 1978).The frequency of Hp' in the Sudanese tribes are lower than that of the other African countries, e.g., Nigeria (0.5977: Barnicot et al, 1960), Kenya (0.5682): Herzog et al, 1970), in Tanzania (0.6386 and 0.5686 in Sandawe and Nyaturu, respectively : Godber et al, 1976), and Uganda (0.65: Spitsyn et al, 1978). On the other hand a lower frequency of Hp' has also been reported in eastern Saudi Arabia (0.432: Goedde et al, 19791, tribes of western Saudi Arabia (0.3182-0.4167: Saha et al, 1980) and southern Arabia (0.4454: Marengo-Rowe et al, 1974).…”

“…Low frequencies of Hpo have also been reported in east (2.3%) and west Saudi Arabia (5%) and southern Arabia (9%) (Goedde et al, 1979;Saha et al, 1980;Marengo-Rowe et al, 1974). Hpo has also been reported to be present in a varying frequency in other African populations (Tanzania, 6.2%, Kenya, 4.0%) (Godber et al, 1976;Herzog et al, 1970). A moderate frequency of modified phenotypes such as 1-1 M, 2-1 M, 2-2 M were observed in both the Nuba and Hawazma tribes.…”

“…The Arabs from eastern Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, Tanzanians, and Kenyans had been reported t o have much higher frequency of PGM' (0.696-0.7710: Goedde et al, 1979;Sawhney et al, 1984;Herzog et al, 1970). A still higher frequency of PGM' had been reported in the Nubians of Egypt (0.7710) southern Arabians (0.7797) Sandawe and Nyaturu of Tanzania (0.8045, 0.83741, and Baganda of East Africa (0.842) (Bertin et al, 1978;Godber et al, 1976;Robert et al, 1977). A low frequency of PGM' seems to be the characteristic of the Sudanese population, with slight variations among different tribes.…”

“…A much higher frequency of TfD1 was observed in the Fur (0.1051) and the Baggara of the Sudan (0.1453) (Bayoumi et al, 1985). On the contrary a much lower frequency of the TfD' gene was reported in the populations of eastern and western Saudi Arabia (0.006-0.0543), Jordan (0.003), southern Arabia (0.002), Ethiopia (0.003), Sandawe of Tanzania (0.051, Kenya (0.0251, Uganda (0.02) (Goedde et al, 1979;Saha et al, 1980;Saha and Banerjee., 1986;Marengo-Rowe et al, 1974;Godber et al, 1976;Herzog et al, 1970;Spitsyn et al, 1978). The TfD gene was absent in Kuwaiti Arabs (Sawhney et al, 1984).…”

“…This may, therefore, be characteristic of the populations of the Nuba Mountain region of the Sudan. A modified form of 2-1 phenotype has been reported in southern Arabia (MarengoRowe et al, 1974) Tanzania (Godber et al, 1976); and Kenya (Herzog et al, 1978).…”