Study of Genetic Effects of Sulphur Mustard Gas on Former Workers of Ohkunojima Poison Gas Factory and Their Offspring

General health examination and one-dimensional electrophoretic examination to detect mutations at the protein level were conducted in order to elucidate potential genetic effects of sulphur mustard gas on children of the former workers of Ohkunojima Poison Gas Factory.
In the general examination, no disease which was definitely considered to be caused by genetic effects was observed, and no examination values obtained for the children proved to be significantly abnormal compared with those for their parents.
Blood samples from 456 children were electrophoretically examined for 30 protein systems. A total of 36 protein variants were detected in 10 protein systems, and the frequency of variants was 2.63 per 1,000 tests. Family study was completed for 32 of these variants, all of which were confirmed to be genetic variants. In 29,868 locus tests, mutation occurred in germ cells of parents could not be detected.
Among 36 variants, two PGM2 variants and one GPI variant were detected for the first time in this study.