African Americans exhibit a predominant allele in the midst of extensive KIR2DL1 allelic diversity

KIR2DL1 alleles were identified by DNA sequencing of the coding region from amplified genomic DNA from 100 random African Americans. The majority of individuals (97%) carried a KIR2DL1 locus. Allele KIR2DL1*00302 was found in 68% of individuals but KIR2DL1*00401, *002, *00303, *006, and *007 were also frequent. Eleven new alleles were described: KIR2DL1*00403, *01101, *01102, *012, *013N, *014, *015, *016, *017, *018, and *019. Nine of the novel alleles encoded amino acid substitutions located throughout the receptor; one allele carried a stop codon in the exon encoding the first extracellular domain.