IMGT/HLA Database

Ethnic Origins Help Page

The ethnic origins qualifier is used to describe the ethnic group and geographical location of the cell donor. The ethnic origin qualifier allows the user to query the ethnic group or geographical location of the cell donor. This can be used in population genetics studies of the HLA alleles. The origin of the cell donor can be used to infer which alleles are found in particular ethnic groups, and the geographical spread of HLA alleles.

Description of Ethnic Origin Qualifier

The previous database used basically a free text field for the ethnic origin qualifier. The new database has revised this using a tree structure to allow a more consistent method of recording the origin and to improve the query options available. The basic structure of the qualifier is shown below.

General Form Ethnic Group - Tribe or Local Area, Country, Region

The first part of the qualifier represents the general ethnic group of the cell donor. This splits all entries into 9 groups, providing a general classification of the major ethnic origin of the cell.

Ethnic Group	Description
American Indian	Peoples resident in the Americas before the arrival of Europeans
Australian Aboriginal	Pre-European inhabitants of Australia
Black	People whose historical origin is sub-Saharan Africa
Caucasoid	People with historical origins in Europe, North Africa or Southwestern Asia, including India
Hispanic	People historically of mixed Mediterranean Caucasoid, American Indian race.
Mixed	Cell donor is of mixed race, the qualifier will where possible provide further details
Oriental	People with historical origins in East Asia.
Pacific Islander	Aboriginal inhabitants of Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia
Unknown	Ethnic origin of the cell donor is unknown

These broader groupings allow more general queries on the field. The second part of the qualifier details the regional information including local area or tribal group, country and geographic region. This second set of qualifiers permits a more specialised query on particular groups or tribes, and on particular countries or continents. Further examples are shown below.

Terena Indians, Brazil would be listed as American Indian - Terena, Brazil, South America
Italian would be listed as Caucasoid - Italy, Europe
Luo Tribe, Kenya would be listed as Black - Luo, Kenya, East Africa

Querying the Ethnic Origin Qualifier

Due to structure of the qualifier it is possible to query the database at a number of levels. The user can make general queries on the ethnic group or more specialised queries on a particular country or region. The structure of all entries means that the query can easily be constructed as all entries follow a standard format. Once the user is used to the simple structure they can begin to construct more advanced queries. Examples of queries are shown below.

Search Parameters	Query Entered
Cells of a particular ethnic group e.g. Caucasoid	Caucasoid*
Cells from a particular tribe or region e.g. Jaidukama	Jaidukama
Cells from a particular country e.g. Nigeria	Nigeria
Cells from a particular region e.g. Europe	*Europe

More complex queries can then be built up from these by using the wildcards (*) in the standard entry structure. For instance to retrieve all the cells of all South American Indians, you would enter "American Indian*South America". This would then provide all hits to this group.

Information

For more information about the database, IMGT/HLA queries (including website) or to subscribe to the IMGT/HLA mailing list please contact IMGT/HLA Support.