Linkage of the genes controlling natural killer cell activity to HLA-B.
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.
Zhang
H
H
Department of Immunogenetics, Beijing Children's Hospital, Beijing, 100045 P. R. China. Huiliz@netscape.net
An
J
J
Jiang
Z
Z
Yang
Q
Q
Sun
L
L
Guo
Y
Y
Sun
Y
Y
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
D015235:HLA-B Antigens