A strong association between HLA-B*5101 and Behçet's disease in Greek patients.
Behçet's disease is known to be associated with HLA-B51, one of the split antigens of HLA-B5, among many different ethnic groups. In a Greek population, an increased incidence of HLA-B5 in the patient group has also been reported. Because the B51 antigen has been recently identified to comprise seven alleles, B*5101-B*5107, we performed HLA-B51 allele genotyping by the PCR-SSP method as well as serological HLA-A and -B typing among 31 Greek patients with Behçet's disease to investigate whether there is any correlation between one particular B51-associated allele and Behçet's disease. The frequency of B51 was remarkably high (80.6%) in the patient group as compared to the ethnically matched control group (26.7%). In addition, HLA-A26 was also increased in the patients (29.0%) as compared with the healthy controls (3.3%). B51 allele genotyping revealed that all these B51-positive patients carried B*5101. This study revealed a strong association of Behçet's disease in Greeks with one of the B51 subantigens, providing insight into the molecular mechanism underlying an HLA association with Behçet's disease.
Mizuki
N
N
Department of Ophthalmology, Yokohama City University School of Medicine, Kanagawa, Japan.
Ohno
S
S
Ando
H
H
Chen
L
L
Palimeris
G D
GD
Stavropoulos-Ghiokas
E
E
Ishihara
M
M
Goto
K
K
Nakamura
S
S
Shindo
Y
Y
Isobe
K
K
Ito
N
N
Inoko
H
H
D001528:Behcet Syndrome / Q000235:genetics*; D006115:Greece; D015234:HLA-A Antigens / Q000235:genetics; D015235:HLA-B Antigens / Q000235:genetics*; D059949:HLA-B51 Antigen; D006650:Histocompatibility Testing; D006801:Humans
D015234:HLA-A Antigens; C039683:HLA-A*26 antigen; D015235:HLA-B Antigens; D059949:HLA-B51 Antigen