Genetic variability of HLA in the Dariusleut Hutterites. A comparative genetic analysis of the Hutterities, the Amish, and other selected Caucasian populations.

There are three endogamous subdivisions of the Hutterite population, a North American religious isolate. These individuals live on communal farms, and residence is strictly patrilocal. We report on the distributions of HLA-A and B alleles and haplotypes in 203 married women from one subdivision--the Dariusleut--in Alberta, Canada. We demonstrate that there is significant linkage disequilbrium among a large fraction of the distinct haplotypes in the Dariusleut Hutterite data; there is a restriction in the number of distinct haplotypes present in the Dariusleut; the Hutterites and the Old Order Amish (Lancaster County, Pennsylvania) are the most genetically distant pair of populations in an ensemble of 11 Caucasian populations; and, finally, the Old Order Amish and the Hutterites are approximately as distant from the Indiana Amish as they are from the eight other Caucasian populations, which are tightly clustered in the space of gene frequencies. These results are consistent with the fact that the Amish and the Hutterites are genetic isolates with small numbers of founders. Certain haplotypes show significant linkage disequilibrium in these as well as in other Caucasian samples. Thus, some of the linkage disequilibrium antedates the formation of these Anabaptist sects.