Genetic polymorphism of the sixth component of complement (C6) in the rhesus monkey.

With isoelectric focusing, the complement protein C6 has been shown to be genetically polymorphic in the rhesus monkey. Three codominant alleles of a single autosomal locus, Rh C6, have been recognized: C6A, C6B, and C6R, with gene frequencies of 0.592, 0.354, and 0.053 in a random rhesus monkey population. Hardy-Weinberg analysis of the phenotypic frequencies in this population yielded observed values very close to those expected. Both natural mating between individuals carrying the various alleles and artificial combinations of sera of the different C6 types demonstrate patterns consistent with this model. Analysis of several families of monkeys confirmed the Mendelian autosomal codominant inheritance with numbers of offspring very close to expected values and no offspring types inconsistent with the mating pair types.