title: Is there any relationship between human leucocyte antigen class II and chronic urticaria? (chronic urticaria and HLA class II).
abstract: The Human Leukocyte Antigen (HLA) typing of large groups of patients with various autoimmune diseases has demonstrated that some HLA alleles occur at higher frequencies in specific diseases than in the general population. Chronic urticaria has been shown to have an autoimmune basis by a previous study which found an association between chronic urticaria and specific HLA groups. We investigated the HLA subtypes of Turkish chronic urticaria patients. For this purpose 42 Turkish patients with chronic urticaria and 115 healthy controls were typed for HLA-DR and DQ by PCR-SSP (Polymerase Chain Reaction Sequence Specific Primers) low resolution DNA technique. We found an increased frequency of DR4 (42.9%, p=0.01) in chronic urticaria patients in comparison with that in healthy controls. This study supports the hypothesis that HLA alleles may be involved in the pathogenesis of chronic urticaria and that they appear to be directly involved in the initiation of the immune response.
authors.affiliation: Department of Dermatology, Ankara Numune Education and Research Hospital, Kizilirmak Mahallesi, 44 Cadde Manolya Sitesi 27/19 Balgat, Ankara, Turkey. poztas@yahoo.com
authors.forename: Pinar
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Oztas
authors.forename: Meltem
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Onder
authors.forename: Sevim
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Gonen
authors.forename: Murat Orhan
authors.initials: MO
authors.lastname: Oztas
authors.forename: Oguz
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Soylemezoglu
mesh_terms: D002908:Chronic Disease; D006683:HLA-DQ Antigens / Q000235:genetics; D006684:HLA-DR Antigens / Q000235:genetics; D015804:HLA-DR4 Antigen / Q000235:genetics; D059811:HLA-DRB1 Chains; D000949:Histocompatibility Antigens Class II / Q000235:genetics*; D006650:Histocompatibility Testing; D006801:Humans; D014581:Urticaria / Q000235:genetics* / Q000276:immunology*
chemical_list: D006683:HLA-DQ Antigens; C063831:HLA-DQ6 antigen; C109756:HLA-DQ8 antigen; D006684:HLA-DR Antigens; D015804:HLA-DR4 Antigen; D059811:HLA-DRB1 Chains; D000949:Histocompatibility Antigens Class II