Two subtypes of hepatitis B virus-associated glomerulonephritis are associated with different HLA-DR2 alleles in Koreans.
Hepatitis B virus (HBV)-associated glomerulonephritis (HBV-GN) is occurring at high prevalence in most Asian endemic areas. There have been some reports on human leucocyte antigen (HLA) associations with HBV infections; however, HLA association with HBV-GN has been rarely reported. Forty-six adult Korean patients with HBV-GN (42 male and four female patients, age 20-66), 100 HBsAg (-) healthy controls, and 89 individuals with chronic HBV infection were studied for HLA-DRB1 and DQB1 gene polymorphisms using high-resolution DNA typing methods. In HBV-GN patients, a strong association with HLA-DR2 was observed compared with HBsAg (-) controls (OR = 4.0). Different HLA-DR2 alleles were associated with different pathologic subtypes of HBV-GN: DRB1*1502 with membranoproliferative glomerulonephritis (MPGN, n = 35) (OR = 14.5) and DRB1*1501 with membranous nephropathy (MN, n = 11) (OR = 3.8). HLA-DQB1*0601, strongly linked to DRB1*1502, was also associated with MPGN subtype of HBV-GN (OR = 4.3). All these associations were also significant compared with chronic HBV infection group. For chronic HBV infection per se, DRB1*1302, DQB1*0402, and DQB1*0604 had some protective effect (OR = 0.4, OR = 0.3, and OR = 0.1, respectively), and DRB1*1101 was weakly associated (OR = 4.6) in Koreans. These results suggest that HLA-DR or related genetic factor is associated with disease susceptibility to HBV-GN in Koreans, and different pathologic subtypes of HBV-GN are influenced by the genetic factors of the patients.
Park
M H
MH
Department of Laboratory Medicine, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea. parkmhee@snu.ac.kr
Song
E Y
EY
Ahn
C
C
Oh
K-H
KH
Yang
J
J
Kang
S J
SJ
Lee
H S
HS
D000328:Adult; D000483:Alleles; D005260:Female; D005787:Gene Frequency; D020022:Genetic Predisposition to Disease; D005921:Glomerulonephritis / Q000208:ethnology / Q000235:genetics* / Q000276:immunology; D015802:HLA-DR2 Antigen / Q000235:genetics*; D006515:Hepatitis B virus / Q000235:genetics* / Q000472:pathogenicity; D006801:Humans; D007723:Korea / Q000208:ethnology; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010641:Phenotype
D015802:HLA-DR2 Antigen