BACKGROUND: Studies have found that killer cell immunoglobulin-like receptor (KIR) gene has genetic polymorphism. Different individuals and NK cells express different banks of KIR gene.
OBJECTIVE: To study the genotypes, haplotypes and polymorphism of KIR gene in Xinjiang Uygur population of China.
METHODS: Gene frequency of KIR gene from 84 volunteers in Xinjiang Uygur population was detected by using sequence-specific primer PCR method. The genotypes and haplotypes were analyzed by Hsu standard.
RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: ①Totally 16 known KIR genes were detected. 3DL3, 2DL4 and 3DL2 were expressed in all the individuals; the most common genes were 2DL1, 3DP1, 2DP1 and 2DL3; the following were 2DS4, 3DL1, 2DL5, 2DS2, 2DL2, 2DS1, 2DS5 and 3DS1; the 2DS3 were relatively low. ②A total of 19 different kinds KIR genotype were identified. The most common on KIR genotypes were AJ (2, 2), AH (5, 2) and M (2, 8), with frequencies of 25.00%, 10.71% and 10.71%. The following were P (2, 17), AI (1, 5), H (2, 4) and C (5, 3), with frequencies of 9.52%, 5.95%, 5.95% and 4.76%. Also, in this study were identified two new genotypes U (17, 21), T(8, 8), which had not been observed in Han so far have been found. ③A total of 11 different kinds of KIR haplotypes were identified. The haplotypes 2 was predominant with a frequency of 48.7%. The following was haplotypes 5 with a frequency of 15.8%. Furthemore, three new genotypes which had not been observed in other population so far, and three new genotypes could not be assigned to the haplotypes, accoding to standard method of Hsu. These findings suggested that there are distinctive frequencies of KIR gene content, genotype as well as haplotype in Xinjiang Uygur population of China. Meantime, the data demonstrate the presence of new KIR genotypes and haplotypes.