title: Distribution of killer cell immunoglobulin-like receptor genes in population of Vojvodina, Serbia.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Killer cell immunoglobulin-like receptors (KIRs) are glycoproteins regulating the response of natural killer (NK) cells and a few sub-sets of T-cells. The KIR gene frequencies and genotype content vary considerably among different ethnic groups.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  The aim of this study was to analyse KIR gene polymorphism in the population of Vojvodina and to compare it with selected worldwide populations.
  
  
  METHODS
  The studied sample consists of 134 healthy unrelated individuals, residents of different geographical regions of Vojvodina. DNA samples isolated from peripheral blood leukocytes by the silica-based extraction method were used in reverse PCR-SSO and PCR-SSP technique to detect the presence and absence of KIR genes.
  
  
  RESULTS
  All 16 KIR genes, a total of 37 different KIR genotypes, were observed in the Vojvodina population with the presence of framework and pseudogenes in all individuals. The neighbour-joining phylogenetic tree shows that the Vojvodina population is in the same cluster with Croatians, Turkish, Russians, Czechs, Irish, Italians, French, Macedonians and Polish. The Vojvodina population shows polymorphism of the KIR gene family present in other European and European-derived populations studied previously.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The present study may serve as a reference for comparisons in further anthropological and disease association studies and also provide more informative data valuable for donor search strategy in haematopoietic stem cell transplantation.
authors.affiliation: a Department for Laboratory Diagnostics , Institute for Blood Transfusion of Vojvodina , Hajduk Veljkova 9a , Novi Sad , Serbia .
authors.forename: Svetlana I
authors.initials: SI
authors.lastname: Vojvodić
authors.affiliation: a Department for Laboratory Diagnostics , Institute for Blood Transfusion of Vojvodina , Hajduk Veljkova 9a , Novi Sad , Serbia .
authors.forename: Dušica S
authors.initials: DS
authors.lastname: Ademović-Sazdanić
authors.affiliation: b Deprtment of Hematology , Institute for Internal Medicine , Novi Sad , Serbia , and.
authors.forename: Stevan L
authors.initials: SL
authors.lastname: Popović
authors.affiliation: c Department of Oncology and Hematology , Institute for Child and Youth Health Care of Vojvodina , Novi Sad , Serbia.
authors.forename: Nada V
authors.initials: NV
authors.lastname: Konstantinidis
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001483:Base Sequence; D005006:Ethnicity / Q000235:genetics*; D005260:Female; D005787:Gene Frequency / Q000235:genetics*; D005828:Genetics, Population; D005838:Genotype; D006801:Humans; D007694:Killer Cells, Natural / Q000166:cytology*; D015810:Linkage Disequilibrium; D008297:Male; D020641:Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide / Q000235:genetics; D054340:Receptors, KIR / Q000235:genetics*; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA; D055771:Serbia
chemical_list: D054340:Receptors, KIR
keywords: Genetic distance; Vojvodina population; killer immunoglobulin-like receptor (KIR) gene polymorphism