Minahasa Anthropology

Fast hemoglobin variant in Minahassan people of Sulawesi, Chinese and Thais: 2256 GlyAsp
R. Quentin Blackwell§, Chen-Sheng Liu§, Luan Eng Lie-Injo¶, Wita Pribadi||
Department of Biochemistry, U. S. Naval Medical Research Unit No. 2, Taipei, Taiwan, Republic of China
The opinions and assertions contained herein are those of the authors and are not to be construed as official or reflecting the views of the U.S. Navy Department or the U.S. Naval Service at large.
Mailing address from U.S.: Box 14 APO San Francisco 96263.
§Department of Biochemistry, U.S. Naval Medical Research Unit No. 2, Taipei, Taiwan, Republic of China.
¶Institute for Medical Research and Hooper Foundation, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
||Department of Parasitology and General Pathology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Indonesia, Djakarta, Indonesia.

Abstract
Hemoglobin J Manado was found in 1957 in the father and two children of a Minahassan family originating from Manado, Northern Sulawesi, Indonesia. Present studies demonstrate that the structural anomaly in J Manado is located in the T5 section of the hemoglobin molecule; the glycyl group normally found at the -56 position, or the D7 position of the D-helix, is replaced by an aspartyl group.
Previous work had established that the same structural change occurs in Hemoglobin J Meinung, seen in Chinese residents of Taiwan, as well as in Hemoglobin J Korat or J Bangkok found in Thai subjects.
The origins and ethnic background of the Minahassan people are obscure; their relatively large stature, light complexion, and language serve to set them from all other groups in Indonesia as well as Southeast Asia. They have no apparent ethnic connection either with Chinese or Thais, however, because of the relative geographical proximities of the three groups it appears likely that the occurrence of the same hemoglobin variant within all three can be explained by gene flow rather than by separate mutations.