HLA associations with Hashimoto's thyroiditis.
There is disagreement over the HLA-DR associations of Hashimoto's (goitrous) thyroiditis. We have studied 86 English Caucasian patients with this condition whose DR types were determined by restriction fragment polymorphism analysis. HLA-DR3 was significantly more frequent in these patients than in 100 controls (chi 2 = 7.09; P less than 0.01). The relative risk was 2.23 and aetiological fraction 0.29. HLA-DPB and DQB alleles were analysed in a proportion of these subjects by enzymatic DNA amplification and oligonucleotide probing. The only significant finding was an excess of HLA-DQw2 (in linkage disequilibrium with DR3) in the Hashimoto group (chi 2 = 7.43, P less than 0.007). These results do not support a difference between goitrous and atrophic thyroiditis based on respective associations with HLA-DR5 and DR3, but confirm a recent study in which HLA-DR3 was associated with Hashimoto's thyroiditis. However, it is possible that genes telomeric to DR3 may be involved in determining which type of thyroiditis a patient with autoimmune hypothyroidism develops.
Department of Medicine, University of Cambridge Clinical School, UK.
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Tandon
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Zhang
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Weetman
D005260:Female; D006681:HLA-D Antigens / Q000032:analysis*; D006683:HLA-DQ Antigens / Q000032:analysis; D015803:HLA-DR3 Antigen / Q000032:analysis; D006801:Humans; D015810:Linkage Disequilibrium / Q000235:genetics; D008297:Male; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction; D012150:Polymorphism, Restriction Fragment Length; D013967:Thyroiditis, Autoimmune / Q000235:genetics*
D006681:HLA-D Antigens; D006683:HLA-DQ Antigens; C053186:HLA-DQ2 antigen; D015803:HLA-DR3 Antigen