PREDISPOSITION FOR CHOLERA OF INDIVIDUALS WITH O BLOOD GROUP POSSIBLE EVOLUTIONARY SIGNIFICANCE

At the Matlab Hospital of the international Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh, the authors examined the blood groups of patients hospitalized between January and September 1979 for diarrheal disease due to a variety of bacterial and viral agents. A significant association was identi...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:American journal of epidemiology 1985-06, Vol.121 (6), p.791-796
Main Authors: GLASS, ROGER I., HOLMGREN, JAN, HALEY, CHARLES E., KHAN, M. R., SVENNERHOLM, ANNMARI, STOLL, BARBARA J., HOSSAIN, K. M. BELAYET, BLACK, ROBERT E., YUNUS, M., BARUA, DHIMAN
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
ABO Blood-Group System - genetics
Bacterial diseases
Bacterial diseases of the digestive system and abdomen
Bangladesh
Biological and medical sciences
Biological Evolution
blood groups
Cholera
Cholera - blood
Cholera - genetics
diarrhea
Diarrhea - blood
Diarrhea - etiology
Disease Susceptibility
Human bacterial diseases
Humans
Infectious diseases
Medical sciences
Tropical bacterial diseases
Tropical medicine
Vibrio cholerae
Vibrlo cholerae
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Summary:At the Matlab Hospital of the international Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh, the authors examined the blood groups of patients hospitalized between January and September 1979 for diarrheal disease due to a variety of bacterial and viral agents. A significant association was identified only for cholera, in which cholera patients were twice as likely to have blood group O and one-ninth as likely to have blood group AB as community controls. A follow-up study of family contacts of cholera patients, carried out between September 1980 and July 1982, indicated that blood group did not affect an individual's risk of having a culture-proven infection with V. cholerae 01 but was directly related to the severity of disease. Individuals with the most severe diarrhea compared with those with asymptomatic infection were more often of blood group O(68% versus 36%, p < 0.01) and less often of AB (0% versus 7%, p < 0.01). It was not possible to identify the molecular basis for this genetically related protection using biologic models of cholera that are currently available. The constant selective pressure of cholera against people of O blood group may account in part for the extremely low prevalence of O group genes and the high prevalence of B group genes found among the people living in the Gangetic Delta.
ISSN:0002-9262
1476-6256
DOI:10.1093/oxfordjournals.aje.a114050