ABO-haptoglobin interaction in the white Australian population: further evidence from Tasmania

A total of 2003 donors from the island state of Tasmania, Australia, were investigated for association between the genetic polymorphisms, ABO and haptoglobin, HP. No interaction between phenotypes of the two systems was found, although the observed deficit of HP*1 in group O has also been noted in the neighbouring Victorian population. When the Tasmanian and Victorian samples were merged to give a large Australian sample (N = 4,211) again no association was found among the phenotypes. However, significant differences were observed in the distributions of both HP phenotypes and alleles between group O and non-O persons respectively.