Vol. 12(1), pp. 5-8, July-December 2022 DOI: 10.5897/JBSA2022.0117 Article Number: 2B6237069785 ISSN 2141-2464 Copyright©2022 Author(s) retain the copyright of this article http://www.academicjournals.org/JBSA Journal of Bioinformatics and Sequence Analysis Short communication Molecular organisation of Kell (KEL) red blood cell variants among voluntary blood donors at the National Blood Grouping Testing Laboratory, Kenya Rachel N. Githiomi 1,2 *, Kennedy K. Muna 4 , Suleiman A. Mbaruk 2 , Christine, K. Yegon 3 , Evelynn Chege 3 , Celestino Obiero 3 , Genghis H. Lopez 5 , Eileen V. Roulis 5 , Catherine A. Hyland 5 and Robert L. Flower 5,6 1 Department of Health Policy Research and Innovation, Ministry of Health, Kenya. 2 Department of Medical Laboratory Sciences, Medical School, Mount Kenya University, Kenya. 3 Tissue and Transplant Authority Kenya (formally Kenya National Blood Transfusion Service), Kenya. 4 Department of Medical Laboratory Sciences, School of Pure, Applied and Health Sciences, Murang’a University of Technology, Kenya. 5 Research and Development (R&D), Australian Red Cross Lifeblood, Australia. 6 ARC Training Centre for Biopharmaceutical Innovation, Queensland University of Technology, Australia. Received 13 August, 2022; Accepted September 13, 2022 A variant is an alternative nucleotide located at a specific region of a gene. 48 genes encode for human red cell blood group systems. Variants within these genes encode for alleles, which can be highly polymorphic. The blood group gene loci jointly display all types of inherited variants to include single nucleotide variants (SNVs), insertions/deletions (indels), and structural variants. In Africa, there is limited information on the red cell variants. The aim of the study was to determine the incidence of Kell red blood cell variants among the Kenyans. Blood donor’s samples that were used for routine grouping process were identified for this study. Next generation sequencing method was employed to predict the Kell red cell variants in blood donor samples. Descriptive statistics was applied and the result was presented in form of tables. The study reveals that Kell system has six variants with two major phenotypes and genotpes. The most common phenotype genotyped was KEL2 (KEL*02/KEL*02) 79% (85/108) followed by KEL2 KEL6 KEL7 (KEL*02.06/KEL*02) 16.7% (18/108). The rest were found to be of low frequency and all were associated with KEL2. The study recommends an extended study with a large sample size and introduction of extended phenotyping to aid Kell antigens identification in the donor population. Key words: Kell, variant, allele, KEL, KEL*02/KEL*02, molecular, genome, gene, next generation sequencing. INTRODUCTION A variant is an alternative nucleotide whose location is at a specific region within a gene or genome. A gene variant is a permanent change in the DNA sequence that makes up a gene. 48 genes encode for human red cell blood *Corresponding author. rachelgithiomi@gmail.com . Tel: +254 721 306 829. Author(s) agree that this article remain permanently open access under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 International License