U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government, Department of Justice.

NCJRS Virtual Library

The Virtual Library houses over 235,000 criminal justice resources, including all known OJP works.
Click here to search the NCJRS Virtual Library

Congenital Tetragametic Blood Chimerism Explains a Cause of Questionable Paternity

NCJ Number
236216
Journal
Journal of Forensic Sciences Volume: 56 Issue: 5 Dated: September 2011 Pages: 1346-1348
Author(s)
Qiong Yu, M.Sc.; Qian Li, M.Sc.; Suqing Gao, B.Sc.; Yuqing Su, B.Sc.; Zhihui Deng, Ph.D.
Date Published
September 2011
Length
3 pages
Annotation
The authors encountered a 4-year-old boy with developmental hip dysplasia whose preoperative (serologic) blood group was AB, but whose red cell agglutination was atypical ("mixed field") and caused the authors to study the patient's parents' ABO blood groups.
Abstract
Human chimerism is the presence of less than or equal to two cell populations in one person that contain genetic material from more than one zygote. Chimerism may be either acquired by transfusion or transplantation of donor cells, or congenital arising from embryo fusion or dizygotic twin-twin transfusion. Parental blood groups (AB and O) suggested possible nonparentage. An alternative explanation of the findings was that the child was chimeric or mosaic. Molecular cloning and genotyping of his ABO locus in leukocytes revealed two heterozygous genotypes: A102/O01 and B101/O01. Other loci, each of which possessed three distinct alleles, unambiguously showed transmission of two alleles from either the child's mother (e.g., HLA-A) or two alleles from the child's father (e.g., D8S1179). Findings indicate that the child is a tetragametic chimera. (Published Abstract)