Serological Variation in Meos and Sunni Muslims and Comparison with Other Castes of Haryana

The present investigation involves the study of distr ibution of serological tra its (A1A2BO, MN and Rh(D) blood group systems) among Meos and Sunni Muslims and their comparison with other castes of Haryana, which are, Jat, Ahir, Ror, Saini, Kamboj, Kumhar and Chamar. The frequency of different alleles fa lls well within the range of other castes of Haryana. Chi-square values for these blood groups sys tems showed statistically non-significant differences. The allele frequencies showed considerable heterogeneity among these populations. Meos and Sunni Muslims have similar values of hetrozygosity, that is, 0.507 and 0.503, respectively. These values are higher than other studied populations of Haryana. From the genetic structure analysis it was seen that only a small fraction of total gene diversity accounts for genetic difference among them and major portion of it was due to genetic varia tion within them. Minimum genetic distance (0.00064) was observed between Ahir and Kamboj and maximum (0.04931) between Jat and Ror. Address for correspondence: Surender Singh Assistant Professor, Government P. G. College, Jind, Haryana, India Mobile: 09416152981 E-mail: [email protected] INTRODUCTION Study of biological variation helps in revealing relationships among human individuals as well as among various groups. India has a unique population structure, which is based on the caste system. The most unique and basic to the Indian population structure is the existence of exogamous sub-castes within each of these castes. During the last few decades several reports have been published on the distribution of blood groups among various ethnic groups from India (Bhasin et al. 1992, 1994; Bhasin and Walter 2001). In the state of Haryana, only a few studies are available with regard to serological traits (Khurana 1956; Kushwaha et al.1990a, b; Yadav et al. 2001). The present study was aimed at characterization of Meo and Sunni Muslim populations of Haryana by investigating some of the serological traits like A1A2BO, Rh(D) and MN blood groups and comparing them with the other castes of Haryana. MATERIAL AND METHODS Haryana is situated in the north-west Indian region. Bulk of the Haryana population comprises of Hindus (about 89%), followed by Sikh (about 6%), and Muslims (about 4%). Due to the considerable migration and mixing in the past, the population of Haryana at present comprises several well known ethnic groups. Most of the people are agriculturists, but division of castes according to occupation still persists. In the present study, Meos and Sunni Muslims of Haryana were chosen for investigation. Meos live in Mewat, Faridabad, Gurgaon, and Mahendergarh district of Haryana. They were formerly Hindus. According to Hunter (1908), they converted to Islam at the time of Ghazni, Tughlak, Balban and Aurangzeb. Meos are settled cultivators and depend mainly on land. Some of them are in business, government services and some are selfemployed. They maintain only self gotra exogamy. Sunni Muslims in Haryana are represented by Dum, Dhobi, Julaha, Luhar, Madari, Nalband and Teli. Most of these consist of Sunni Muslims, but some of these are represented by both Shia and Sunni Muslims. Dums, Dhobi, Julaha, Luhar, Madari, Nalband maintain self gotra exogamy, whereas, Telis do not marry within their own mother’s and paternal grandmother’s gotra. The data regarding the genetic traits were collected from two different castes of Haryana 246 SURENDER SINGH AND ABHAY SINGH YADAV viz. Meos and Sunni Muslims. Total 395 (Meos, 205; Sunni Muslims, 190) were studied. Full particulars of an individual including his/her name, father’s name, caste and age were noted before taking data. All necessary precautions were taken to exclude closely related individuals, for example, sibs, parent-children etc. The blood samples were collected from Mewat, Gurgaon, Faridabad, Kaithal, Jind and Kurukshetra districts. The red blood cells were typed for A1A2BO, Rh(D) and MN blood group systems following conventional slide method as per antisera manufacturer’s instructions. The method of Yasuda (1984) was used to estimate the A1A2BO blood group frequency. For MN blood group system gene counting method was used whereas the frequency of alleles of Rh(D) blood group system was calculated by square root method. The genetic variation was measured by calculating average heterozygosity (Nei 1973a) and measures of population differentiation using gene frequency were carried out (Nei 1973b). Genetic distance was computed as suggested by Nei (1972), and the construction of the dendrogram was made according to Edwards and CavalliSforza (1965). RESULTS AND DISCUSSION Table 1 shows the distribution of observed and expected phenotype numbers in Meos and Sunni Muslims and their comparison with other castes of Haryana. It is evident from Table 1 that observed and expected phenotype frequencies are generally in good agreement. Table 2 shows the gene frequency of Meos and Sunni Muslims and their comparison with other castes of Haryana. The frequency of A1, A2, B and O allele in present investigation are 0.160, 0.020, 0.255 and 0.565 in Meos and 0.197, 0.015, 0.240 and 0.548 respectively. These values fit well with in the range of earlier studies, that is, for A allele range is 0.068 in Khatri (Kushwaha et al. 1990a) to 0.356 in Bazigar (Yadav et al. 1997b) and for B allele range is 0.185 in Sunar to 0.387 in Khatri (Kushwaha et al. 1990b). The distribution of MN blood groups system has been studied only in a few populations of Haryana. The lowest value for M allele was observed in Saini (0.593) of Kurukshetra and Mahendergarh (Yadav et al.1997b) and Gujjar (0.745) showed highest value (Kushwaha et al. 1990a). The value of M allele obtained in Meos (0.617) and Sunni Muslims (0.582) fits well in this range. Earlier studies have reported the distribution of Rh(D) Table 1: Phenotype numbers of different blood groups in Meos and Sunni Muslims of Haryana