Gene frequencies of ABO and Rh(D) blood group alleles in Minna, North-Central Nigeria

Abstract

Due to its genetic and medical importance, information on distribution and prevalence of ABO and Rhesus blood type is germane in a society. There is dearth of information in Minna Northcentral Nigeria, it was thus imperative to study its prevalence and allelic frequencies of ABO and Rhesus blood types in the state. This investigation examined the prevalence and gene frequencies for the ABO and Rh (D) alleles in Minna North-central Nigeria, from January 2008 to December 2012 (5 years). Retrospective data for 13937 individuals were extracted over this period for prevalence of ABO and Rh blood groups. This was employed to evaluate the genotypic and allelic frequencies based on Hardy–Weinberg (H-W) equations. Chi-square goodness-of-fit test was also calculated to compare observed and expected frequencies. This study recorded prevalence rate of 44.457%, 25.544%, 19.294%, and 10.705% for O, A, B and AB blood group respectively while 96.721% and 3.279% were Rhesus D positive and negative respectively. Allelic frequencies of the ABO blood groups include O (0.667), A (0.170), B (0.163), and D (0.818) and d (0.182) for Rhesus D positive and Rhesus d negative respectively. On the other hand genotypic frequencies reported were 0.445, 0.029, 0.227, 0.027, 0.217 and 0.055 for OO, AA, AO, BB, BO and AB respectively. All frequencies reported in this study differ significantly from H-W equilibrium (goodness-of-fit X2 for ABO =819.58, df=3, P≤0.05 and goodness-of-fit X2 for Rh= 0.091, df =1, P≤0.05). This pioneering study on ABO and Rhesus blood types in Minna strengthens and corroborates the fact that there is genetic variation in ABO and Rhesus blood types. In future results from this study can act as baseline information for geneticist, clinicians and allied professional on the distribution of these germane blood types in Minna. Keywords: Blood groups, Rhesus, alleles frequencies, gene frequencies