Haptoglobin polymorphism among three populations of Manipur, India: a critical analysis

Haptogloin is a plasma protein that binds free hemoglobin, thereby inhibiting hemoglobin induced oxidative damage. The distribution of haptoglobin alleles varies according to the geographical location and ethnicity. The present study is carried out to study the frequency distribution of haptoglobin in three endogamous populations of Manipur, India. Serum was separated from blood samples collected from 335 Muslims, 262 Meitei Brahmins and 121 Kabuis. HP*2 is found to be highest among Kabuis (0.924) followed by Muslims (0.918) and Meitei Brahmins (0.836). Muslims are found to deviate from the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium (p=0.006). Comparison between the populations show a significant difference between Muslims and Meitei Brahmins (p=0.00) and Meitei Brahmins and Kabuis (p=0.005). The frequency of HP*2 is also found to have increased significantly in comparison to earlier reported data, supporting the hypothesis that haptoglobin polymorphism is still in transient form.