The high homology and opposite orientation of RH genes promote rearrangements between them and generate a large number of RHD and RHCE variants which can be inherited together. Searching of RHD-CE genotypes predicting partial antigens in donors is of interest in order to find more closely matched donors for African descent patients. This study aimed to evaluate a molecular approach to search for RhCE variants in a cohort of individuals with altered expression of D antigen and determine the association of RH variant alleles in Brazilian blood donors. METHODSFrom 80,961 blood samples tested, 421 with atypical D typing results were studied. The samples were phenotyped for C, c, E, e antigens. Rh variants were identified using molecular techniques. RESULTSAll 421 samples had altered RHD alleles, being 563% of them partial D. Among them, 949% presented variant RHCE*ce and the most common associations were: RHD*weak D type 4.2.2 with RHCE*ceAR; RHD*DAR linked to RHCE*ceVS.02; RHD*weak D type 4.0 linked to RHCE*ceVS.02 and RHCE*ce (c.48C, c.105T, c.733G, c.744C, c.1025T). Among the samples with RhCE variants, 106% predict partial c, partial e, hr(B)- and/or hr(S)- and 100% express low prevalence antigens. CONCLUSIONTargeting individuals with altered expression of D antigen can be a good strategy for finding donors with RhCE variants. In our study 949% of the partial D samples revealed altered RHCE variant alleles and 57% of the samples with altered RHD allele predicted partial c, partial e and the lack of the high prevalence hr(B)and hr(S)antigens.264285290