Nucleic Acids Research, 2012, Vol. 40, Database issue D1025 Chromosomal location Nature of encoded protein Alleles Table 1. Blood group systems in the BGMUT databasea System (symbol) ABO (ABO) Chido/Rodgers (CH/RG) Colton (CO) Cromer (CROM) Diego (DI) Dombrock (DO) Duffy (FY) Gerbich (GE) Gill (GIL) H (H) I (I) Indian (IN) John Milton Hagen (JMH) Kell (KEL) Kidd (JK) Knops (KN) Kx (XK) Landsteiner-Weiner (LW) Lewis (LE)b Lutheran (LU) MNS (MNS) Ok (OK) P1PK (P1PK) including globoside (GLOB) Raph (RAPH) Rh (RH) Rh-associated glycoprotein (RHAG) Scianna (SC) T/Tn Xg (XG) Yt (YT) Symbol ABO C4A C4B AQP1 CD55 SLC4A1 ART4 DARC GYPC AQP3 FUT1 FUT2 GCNT2 CD44 SEMA7A KEL SLC14A1 CR1 XK ICAM4 FUT3 FUT6 FUT7 BCAM GYPA GYPB GYPE BSG B3GALNT1 A4GALT CD151 RHCE RHD RHAG ERMAP C1GALT1C1 C1GALT1 XG CD99 ACHE 9q34.2 6p21.3 6p21.3 7p14 1q32 17q21–q22 12p13–p12 1q21–q22 2q14–q21 9p13 19q13.3 19q13.3 6p24.2 11p13 15q22.3–q23 7q33 18q11–q12 1q32 Xp21.1 19p13.2-cen 19p13.3 19p13.3 9q34.3 19q13.2 4q31.21 4q31.21 4q31.1 19p13.3 3q25 22q13.2 11p15.5 1p36.11 1p36.11 6p21.1–p11 1p34.2 Xq24 7p21.3 Xp22.33 Xp22.32, Yp11.3 7q22 Genes Galactosyltransferase and N-acetylgalactosaminyltransferase Complement factor Complement factor Water channel Complement cascade regulator Anion exchanger ADP ribosyltransferase Chemokine receptor Cytokeletal element Water channel Fucosyltransferase Fucosyltransferase N-acetylglucosaminyltransferase Adhesion molecule Adhesion and signaling molecule? Metalloendopeptidase? Urea transporter Cell surface receptor Membrane transport protein? Adhesion molecule Fucosyltransferase Fucosyltransferase Fucosyltransferase Adhesion molecule Unknown Unknown Unknown Plasma membrane protein N-acetylgalactosaminyltransferase Galactosyltransferase Adhesion molecule Unknown Unknown Ammonium and carbon dioxide transporter Adhesion molecule? Galactosyltransferase Galactosyltransferase Unknown Adhesion molecule Acetylcholinesterase 272 3 4 11 15 91 20 11 10 8 45 56 13 4 12 57 18 32 35 4 52 20 2 20 38c 35c 2c 5 9 37 4 103 185 23 9 8 1 1 1 4 aAs of August 2011; total 30 systems, 40 genes and 1251 alleles. bThe FUT3, FUT6 and FUT7 genes are not expressed in erythroid cells. cIncluding hybrid alleles with another member of the GYPA/B/E gene family. regions or ethnic populations and association of the allele with diseases are also noted. Often, a name is also provided for an allele. Names make it easier to refer to alleles and can indicate the associated phenotype and/or nucleotide or amino acid variation. BGMUT uses the allele names given by the dis- coverers of the alleles and/or those that are commonly used by blood group system experts. In the absence of such a name, the curator may provide an arbitrary name. It should be noted that every allele entry in BGMUT has a unique database identiﬁcation number associated with it. The naming of alleles has presented a problem com- pounded by names given to serological phenotypes of antigens they encode. At this time, efforts by the transfu- sion medicine community are in progress to standardize and simplify this nomenclature (6). In the database, to more generally identify each allele, in most cases, ‘name’ includes the gene name followed by the DNA change par- ticular to the allele; to facilitate the recognition of the phenotype//genotype connection, under ‘alias’ is given the serological designation as used by the original authors. In some cases, such as for the Rh system, because of traditional reasons, this arrangement is reversed; in others, such as ABO, only the phenotype des- ignation marked by consecutive numbers is given; this is because the large number of sites of DNA changes in many alleles makes their listing under ‘name’ unwieldy. Alignments of DNA changes in alleles of a single gene or a gene family may uncover patterns that provide some insights into the process of diversiﬁcation, including gene rearrangements and meiotic or unequal recombination (7). An attempt to correlate DNA changes in the gene(s) encoding the antigen(s), with the serological phenotype