Xh Antigen

The Xh antigen was first described by Bundschuh (1966), who suggested X-linkage because the antigen is more frequent in women (97%) than in men (88%). The antigen is demonstrated with antiserum produced by injecting rabbits with pooled serum from healthy women and absorption of the immune serum with selected male sera. Genetic analysis is complicated by the fact that both genetic and nongenetic factors seem to influence the quantity of the antigen present. Dunston and Gershowitz (1973) showed that Xh and Pa 1 (260100) are identical, that X-linkage is ruled out by findings in 2 females, and that this is probably not a mendelian polymorphism. See 260100 for evidence excluding X-linkage.