Biological and cultural determinants of immunoglobulin levels in a Brazilian population with Chagas' disease

Summary Under a general model the genetic heritability is 0.33 for IgA, 0.34 for IgG and 0.12 for IgM, in a Brazilian population with Chagas' disease. Cultural heritability is much smaller. The analyses suggest that, with respect to family resemblance for immunoglobulins, there is no discrepancy between this sample and those from healthy populations reanalyzed recently (Barbosa et al. 1981).This work was supported by Grants 79/0482 FAPESP (Brazil), 77/2222.1392 CNPq (Brazil) and GM 17173 (Hawaii) with collaboration of the Fundação Instituto Osvaldo Cruz (Bambui, MG). Partly supported by NIH Grants GM 24941 and GM 28719.