ee ETEAIL,FhBWMTS0 FRNRIT NEEL ET AL, oy an APR eeeR SANE OS ET a ' 266 Fic. 2.—A, Starch gel patterns of isozymes of lactate dehydrogenase from Micronesian samples showing the normal (slots I and 4) and “Calcutta” like phenotype (slots 2 and 3). B, Polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis of serum transferrin from normal individuals (slots 2, 3, and 5) and individuals of the transferrin CB phenotype (slots'2 and 4). - have reported the transferrin CD phenotype in Micronesian populations, the CB phenotype has not been previously observed. For none of these three individuals were the parents available. DISCUSSION Gene frequencies for the 6 polymorphisms encountered all fell within the range reported in other studies of Micronesians [13-20]. In table 1 we summarize not only our own findings but also the results of all the other studies of rare variants of 25 systems in Micronesians which we were able to locate in the literature. To date, 27 islands have been sampled. Any effort to treat “rare” variants involves some arbitrary decisions; no approach is apt to find universal acceptance at this time. We excluded from this summary any variant which, for the totality of the representatives of the population studied to date, occurs in more than 2% of the group (one of the conventional definitions of a polymorphism). By this definition of rare variant, we excluded from the tabulation the polymorphisms involving types 3 and 7 of the PGM, system reported by Blake et al. [13] and the polymorphism for the type 2 of phosphoglycerate kinase reported by these same authors. The final column of table 1 presents the frequency a0 | “yt Z20 049