title: Cord blood banks collect units with different HLA alleles and haplotypes to volunteer donor banks: a comparative report from Swiss Blood stem cells.
abstract: Allogeneic haematopoietic SCT is a standard therapy for many patients with haematological diseases. A major aim of public umbilical cord blood (UCB) banking is to establish an inventory with a large HLA diversity. Few studies have compared HLA diversity between UCB banks and volunteer unrelated donor (VUD) registries and examined whether UCB banks indeed collect more units with rare alleles and haplotypes. This study compares HLA-A/B/DRB1 allele frequencies and inferred A/B/DRB1-haplotypes in 1602 UCB units and 3093 VUD from two centres in distinct recruitment areas in Switzerland. The results show that the frequencies of HLA-DRB1 alleles as well as of the HLA-A/B/DRB1 haplotypes differ between UCB and VUD. Ten DRB1 alleles occurred at a 2- to 12-fold higher relative frequency in UCB than in VUD and 27 rare alleles were identified in UCB. Out of these 27 alleles, 15 were absent in the entire VUD data set of the national registry. This difference in allele frequencies was found only by intermediate/high-resolution typing. Targeted recruitment of UCB units from non-Caucasian donors could further increase HLA allele and haplotype diversity of available donors. Intermediate or high-resolution DNA typing is essential to identify rare alleles or allele groups.
authors.affiliation: Division of Hematology, Basel Stem Cell Transplant Team, University Hospital Basel, Basel, Switzerland. meyers@uhbs.ch
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Meyer-Monard
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Passweg
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Troeger
authors.forename: H-P
authors.initials: HP
authors.lastname: Eberhard
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Roosnek
authors.forename: G Nicoloso
authors.initials: GN
authors.lastname: de Faveri
authors.forename: Y
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Chalandon
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Rovo
authors.forename: V
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Kindler
authors.forename: O
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Irion
authors.forename: W
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Holzgreve
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Gratwohl
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Müller
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Tichelli
authors.forename: J-M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Tiercy
mesh_terms: D000483:Alleles; D000094902:Blood Banking / Q000379:methods*; D005312:Fetal Blood / Q000276:immunology; D005787:Gene Frequency; D006680:HLA Antigens / Q000235:genetics*; D006412:Hematopoietic Stem Cells / Q000276:immunology; D006801:Humans; D012042:Registries; D013557:Switzerland
chemical_list: D006680:HLA Antigens