title: Novel HLA-A and HLA-B alleles in South American Indians.
abstract: The human leukocyte antigen (HLA) complex includes the most polymorphic genes in humans. More than 600 allelic variants have been described in different populations. The HLA-B locus has contributed the largest number of alleles. Although Native American populations display a restricted number of HLA-alleles, many novel HLA class I alleles have been identified in indigenous communities of Central and South America. We have studied 248 unrelated individuals from three tribes of North-East Argentina and one from South-West Brazil, as well as 80 related individuals from the Brazilian tribe. In the course of this work, we found 8 new B-locus alleles and 2 novel A-locus alleles in these populations. Here we report the nucleotide sequences of A*0219, A*0222, B*3519, B*3520, B*3521, B*3912, B*4009 and B*4803 and we show their relationship with similar alleles. The new alleles B*35092 and B*3518 have been described by us in a previous paper. The possible mechanisms that may have produced these alleles over evolutionary time are discussed.
authors.affiliation: Department of Internal Medicine, University of Texas, Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas 75235-8886, USA.
authors.forename: C Y
authors.initials: CY
authors.lastname: Marcos
authors.forename: M A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Fernández-Viña
authors.forename: A M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Lázaro
authors.forename: M E
authors.initials: ME
authors.lastname: Moraes
authors.forename: J R
authors.initials: JR
authors.lastname: Moraes
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Stastny
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000483:Alleles; D001483:Base Sequence; D015789:HLA-A2 Antigen / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics*; D015235:HLA-B Antigens / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics*; D015797:HLA-B35 Antigen / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics*; D059946:HLA-B39 Antigen; D059947:HLA-B40 Antigen; D006801:Humans; D007199:Indians, South American / Q000235:genetics*; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D012689:Sequence Homology, Nucleic Acid
chemical_list: D015789:HLA-A2 Antigen; D015235:HLA-B Antigens; D015797:HLA-B35 Antigen; D059946:HLA-B39 Antigen; D059947:HLA-B40 Antigen