Relationship between autoimmune hepatitis and HLA-DR4 and DRbeta allelic sequences in the third hypervariable region in Chinese.
OBJECTIVE
To analyze the association of HLA-DRB1 with autoimmune hepatitis (AIH) in patients from China.


METHODS
In 32 patients and 48 healthy controls, polymerase chain reaction amplification with sequence-specific primers (PCR-SSP) was performed to examine the association of certain alleles or polymorphic sequences of HLA-DRB1 with AIH.


RESULTS
HLA-DRB1 typing by PCR-SSP showed that DR4 had a significantly increased frequency among patients with AIH versus healthy control (46.9% versus 20.8%; relative risk = 3.35, P=0.014). In subtypes of DR4, there was a trend of increase in the gene frequency of DRB1 0405 in patients with AIH versus healthy controls (21.9% vs 6.3%, P=0.04, but P(c) =0.08). In addition, a significant increase was found in the alleles frequency encoding QRRAA from the third hyperpolymorphic region of DR4 in the patients with AIH (86.7% of DR4 positive patients vs 40.0% in DR4 positive controls, P=0.016, P(c)=0.028, RR=9.75).


CONCLUSIONS
AIH in Chinese is associated with HLA-DR4. There is a relationship between QRRAA sequence within the third hyperpolymorphic region of the DRB allele and AIH in Chinese.
Ma
X
X
Shanghai Institute of Digestive Disease, Shanghai Second Medical University, Affiliated Renji Hospital, 145 Shandong Zhonglu, Shanghai 200001, China. Xiongma@netease.com
Qiu
D K
DK
D000483:Alleles; D002681:China; D022801:Complementarity Determining Regions / Q000235:genetics*; D017931:DNA Primers; D005260:Female; D005787:Gene Frequency; D005838:Genotype; D006684:HLA-DR Antigens / Q000235:genetics*; D015804:HLA-DR4 Antigen / Q000235:genetics*; D019693:Hepatitis, Autoimmune / Q000235:genetics*; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction
D022801:Complementarity Determining Regions; D017931:DNA Primers; D006684:HLA-DR Antigens; D015804:HLA-DR4 Antigen