title: Differences of frequency distributions of plasminogen phenotypes between Japanese and American populations: new methods for the detection of plasminogen variants.
abstract: Frequency distributions of various plasminogen phenotypes in Japanese and American white populations were studied using electrofocusing in polyacrylamide gels followed by zymography and immunofixation. Using a synthetic substrate, tosyl-lysine-alpha-naphthyl ester, for zymography allowed zymography and immunofixation to be performed sequentially on the same gel plate. By this method, a nonfunctional abnormal plasminogen variant, plasminogen Tochigi, was readily detected in both plasma and serum. The gene frequency of this abnormal variant in a Japanese population was 0.018, whereas the abnormal variant was not detected in an American white population, suggesting the very rare occurrence of this variant in whites. Two common alleles, A and B, clearly identified in neuraminidase-treated samples, were observed at gene frequencies of 0.98 and 0.003, respectively, in the Japanese. These values are significantly different from the reported values in whites of 0.69 for A and 0.3 for B.
mesh_terms: D005787:Gene Frequency; D006801:Humans; D007526:Isoelectric Point; D007564:Japan; D009439:Neuraminidase; D010641:Phenotype; D010958:Plasminogen / Q000235:genetics*; D014481:United States
chemical_list: D010958:Plasminogen; D009439:Neuraminidase