Polymorphism can also be seen in various animals. A more straightforward example of polymorphism can be seen with butterflies. Butterflies have certain pigments, while others possess different pigments. The placement and patterns of these pigments can also vary between different butterflies.
The HLA system is highly polymorphic. There are a wide variety of alleles that give rise to various antigens. Currently, there are over 10,000 allele variations of class I HLA. There are a little over 4,000 alleles currently found for HLA class II. Table 1 indicates the amount of HLA alleles discovered to date, which makes the HLA system one of, if not the most, polymorphic traits of humans.
Table 1. HLA Alleles Discovered to Date.| HLA Allele (BETA CHAIN) | A | B | C | DRB1 | DRB3 | DRB4 | DRB5 | DP | DQ |
| # of alleles | 3913 | 4765 | 3510 | 2058 | 137 | 60 | 48 | 828 | 1079 |
| # of proteins | 2747 | 3465 | 2450 | 1503 | 116 | 49 | 43 | 627 | 751 |
The links below show all the discovered alleles, and are available
here:
References:
Robinson J, Halliwell JA, Hayhurst JH, Flicek P, Parham P, Marsh SGE. The IPD and IMGT/HLA database: allele variant databases.
Nucleic Acids Research. 2015;43:D423-431.
Marsh SGE, Albert ED, Bodmer WF, Bontrop RE, Dupont B, Erlich HA, Fernández-Vina M, Geraghty DE, Holdsworth R, Hurley CK, Lau M, Lee KW, Mach B, Mayr WR, Maiers M, Müller CR, Parham P, Petersdorf EW, Sasazuki T, Strominger JL, Svejgaard A, Terasaki PI, Tiercy JM, Trowsdale J. Nomenclature for factors of the HLA system. Tissue Antigens. 2010;75:291-455.
