Comparing the frequencies of restriction fragment length polymorphisms for dystrophin gene in Chinese with those from Japanese and Caucasian populations

The restriction fragment length polymorphisms distribution and frequency of dystrophin gene in Chinese were studied by using 14 subclones of the entire 14kb cDNA for the dystrophin as hybridization probes. Allelic fragments were detected in hybridization patterns of PvuII/1a, Taq I/2b-3, Taq I/5b-7, and Xba I/10. Among them, the allelic fragments (26kb and 3.8kb) in PvuII/2b-3 pattern and the allelic fragments (10.0kb and 8.4kb) in Taq I/5b-7 patterns had never been reported previously. Compared with the data from Caucasians and Japanese, it indicated that there was a significant difference (P<0.01) of the allelic fragment frequency in Taq I/2b-3 and Xba I/10 patterns between Chinese and Caucasians. The frequencies of allelic fragments A2 (5.6kb) in Taq I/8 and A2 (10.7kb) in EcoR V/9 were high in Caucasians, yet had not been detected in Chinese, the differences were also highly significant. But in Chinese and Caucasians, the B1B2 allelic frequencies in Taq I/5b-7 are the same. As to the frequency of the allelic fragments A1A2 and B1B2 in Pvu II/1a, there was no significant difference between Chinese and Japanese.