Abstract
THE red cell antigen Gerbich (Gea), thought to be among the most widely distributed of blood group antigens, was first noted in 1960 when three women who lacked the antigen made anti-Gea in response to pregnancy1. Subsequently a further fourteen Ge(a−) subjects were discovered through the presence of anti-Gea in their serum, the antibody selecting them out of perhaps millions. The seventeen propositi were from ten different countries and were of European, Mexican, South American Indian and Negro extraction. Some of the sibs of these propositi were also Ge(a−), but outside their families no Ge(a−) subject was found in testing nearly 40,000 random people, chiefly Europeans but including more than 1,000 Negroes and more than 100 Asiatics1,2. The antigen was shown to be a dominant character and its locus to be genetically independent of those responsible for most of the established blood group systems2.
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Rosenfleld, R. E., Haber, G. V., Kissmeyer-Nielsen, F., Jack, J. A., Sanger, R., and Race, R. R., Brit. J. Haematol., 6, 344 (1960).
Race, R. R., and Sanger, R., Blood Groups in Man, fifth ed. (Blackwell Scientific Publications, Oxford, 1968).
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BOOTH, P., ALBREY, J., WHITTAKER, J. et al. Gerbich Blood Group System: a Useful Genetic Marker in Certain Melanesians of Papua and New Guinea. Nature 228, 462 (1970). https://doi.org/10.1038/228462a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/228462a0
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