Orosomucoid (ORM) Subtyping: Application to Paternity Testing

Abstract

An extended genetically determined polymorphism of human alpha-1-acid glycoprotein or orosomucoid (ORM) can be recognized using isoelectric focusing (IEF) in polyacrylamide gel followed by immunofixation or immunoblotting. After neuraminidase treatment of plasma or sera five of the six common ORM phenotypes were observed in population studies indicating the existence of three autosomal codominant alleles (Thymann and Eiberg 1986; Yuasa et al. 1986). According to the nomenclature of Johnson et al. (1969) the three allelic genes were designated ORM*F1, ORM*F2 and ORM*S. The ORM*F gene product can be separated into F1 and F2 only with the high resolving power of IEF. ORM subtyping has been carried out recently in populations from Japan, Denmark and Germany (Umetsu et al. 1985; Yuasa et al. 1986; Thymann and Eiberg 1986; Weidinger et al. 1987). There is evidence for the existence of a second structural locus in the ORM system. ORM has been mapped to chromosome 9 by linkage to ABO, adenylate kinase 1 and delta-aminolevul inate dehydrase (Eiberg et al. 1983).