Molecular ABO phenotyping in cynomolgus macaques using real-time quantitative PCR

Macaques are commonly used in biomedical research as animal models of human disease. The ABO phenotype of donors and recipients plays an important role in the success of transplantation and stem cell research of both human and macaque tissue. Traditional serological methods for ABO phenotyping can be time consuming, provide ambiguous results and/or require tissue that is unavailable or unsuitable. We developed a novel method to detect the A, B, and AB phenotypes of macaques using real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction. This method enables the simple and rapid screening of these phenotypes in macaques without the need for fresh blood or saliva. This study reports the distribution of the A, B, and AB phenotypes of captive cynomolgus macaques that, while regionally variable, closely resembles that of rhesus macaques. Blood group B, as in rhesus macaques, predominates in cynomolgus macaques and its frequency distribution leads to a probability of major incompatibility of 41%. No silencing mutations have been identified in exon 6 or 7 in macaques that could be responsible for the O phenotype, that, although rare, have been reported. The excess homozygosity of rhesus and cynomolgus macaque genotypes in this study, that assumes the absence of the O allele, suggests the possibility of some mechanism preventing the expression of the A and B transferases.