Objective: To determine the genetic polymorphisms of serum orosomucoid (ORM) in Han population in Nanjing of China and provide genetic data for studying the individual variance in the plasma protein binding of weak alkaline drugs.
Methods: The desialylated sera from 220 unrelated subjects were analyzed by isoelectric focusing on polyacrylamide gels followed by immunoblotting.
Results: The band patterns of ORM showed that the polymorphism of the structural locus ORM1 was controlled by three codominant autosomal alleles, ORM1*F1, ORM1*F2 and ORM1*S, which presented five phenotypes, ORM1 F1(47.27%), ORM1 S(5.46%), ORM1 F1F2 (3.18%), ORM1 F1S(43.64%), and ORM1 F2S(0.45%). The allele frequencies were: ORM1*F1=0.7068, ORM1*F2=0.0182, ORM1*S=0.2750.
Conclusion: The ORM1 locus is polymorphic and the ORM2 locus is monomorphic in sera from the Han people in Nanjing of China.