Serum Albumin Variants in New Guinea Indigenes

Four types of rapidly migrating and four types of slowly migrating variants of human serum albumin have been distinguished by starch gel electrophoresis [3]. Three of these were found in American Indians and the rest in Caucasians. As one adjunct to surveys undertaken for the purpose of malaria control, specimens from 724 individuals from 44 widely scattered indigenous villages in the Australian territories of Papua and New Guinea were examined in two starch gel electrophoretic systems (indicated in the legend of Figure 2) for variants of serum albumin: one rapidly migrating and one slowly migrating type of variant were observed. The electrophoretic pattern of the rapidly migrating variant has been previously reported [3]. This variant has now been found in residents of three widely separated New Guinea villages : in two of 35 people from a village (6" 10' S and 146" 12' E) in Marksham Valley in the Eastern Highlands, in one of 45 people from a village (8" 38' S and 146" 12' E) near Papondetta in the southeastern peninsula and in four of 31 people from Rossel Island (11" 21' S and 154" 16' E) in the Louisade Archipelago. An additional 12 individuals with the variant were identified during a subsequent investigation of relatives of the probands from Rossel Island, and the usual, autosomal, co-dominant pattern of inheritance observed (fig. 1). Since the sera were examined in two starch gel electrophoretic systems which are capable of detecting a variety of human albumin variants, it seems most likely that the rapidly migrating variant, despite its ascertainment in widely separated regions of New Guinea, is in each case the same. Although the individuals in this survey were not unrelated and hence no estimate of gene frequency can be made, the appearance of the variant in a few individuals from three widely separated areas