title: Linkage of the genes controlling natural killer cell activity to HLA-B.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To study whether there is a relationship between HLA-B alleles and low natural killer(NK) cell activity in Chinese.
  
  
  METHODS
  The subjects were 34 unrelated healthy individuals (10 males and 24 females), aged 25-60 years, and 31 individuals (17 males and 14 females) from 11 families, aged 22-70 years, previously genotyped for HLA class I, II, complotypes and haplotypes that were assigned based on family studies. The unrelated individuals were typed for HLA-A, -B antigen by a microcytotoxicity assay and all the subjects were tested for NK cell activity by lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) enzyme-release assay.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Statistical analysis showed that 30 lysis unit(LU) was the cutoff value of low and high NK reactors. The frequency of low reactor individuals homozygous for HLA-B was significantly higher than that for those for HLA-DR(P< 0. 05). The associated genes included HLA-B13, B40, B46, B7, B57, defined as NKB1 genes, and HLA-B44 as NKB2 gene. Family studies provide further evidence that the genes controlling low NK cell activity were located in the MHC region and it was a recessive trait.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  There were recessive genes associated with HLA-B controlling low NK cell activity in Chinese. The NKB alleles were partly different from those found in Caucasian.
authors.affiliation: Department of Immunogenetics, Beijing Children's Hospital, Beijing, 100045 P. R. China. Huiliz@netscape.net
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: An
authors.forename: Z
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Jiang
authors.forename: Q
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.forename: Y
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Guo
authors.forename: Y
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Sun
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000483:Alleles; D005260:Female; D008040:Genetic Linkage; D015235:HLA-B Antigens / Q000235:genetics*; D006801:Humans; D007694:Killer Cells, Natural / Q000276:immunology*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged
chemical_list: D015235:HLA-B Antigens