title: Distributions of HLA-A and -B alleles and haplotypes in the Yi ethnic minority of Yunnan, China: relationship to other populations.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To investigate the distributions of human leukocyte antigen (HLA)-A and -B alleles and HLA-A-B haplotypes in the Yi ethnic minority of the Yunnan Province, situated in southwestern China.
  
  
  METHODS
  DNA typing for HLA-A and -B loci was performed using the polymerase chain reaction-sequence-based typing (PCR-SBT) method on 114 randomly selected healthy individuals of the Yi population. The allelic frequencies of HLA-A and -B loci were calculated by direct counting and HLA-A-B haplotypes were estimated using the expectation maximization algorithm.
  
  
  RESULTS
  A total of 17 HLA-A and 38 HLA-B alleles were found in the Yi population. The most frequent alleles were A*2402 (32.46%), A*1101 (26.32%), and A*0203 (10.09%) at the HLA-A locus and B*4601 (12.28%), B*1525 (10.09%), B*4001 (8.77%), and B*3802 (7.89%) at the HLA-B locus. The predominant HLA-A-B haplotypes were A*2402-B*1525 (7.86%) and A*0203-B*3802 (5.64%), followed by A*1101-B*4001 (4.69%). Phylogenetic analysis indicates that the Yi population in the Honghe, Yunnan Province of China basically belongs to groups of southeastern Asian origin, but shares some characteristics with northeastern Asian groups.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The present study may add to the understanding of HLA polymorphism in the Yi ethnic group that was poorly defined previously, and provide useful information for bone marrow transplantation, anthropological research, and forensic sciences as well as for disease-association studies.
authors.affiliation: Department of Forensic Medicine, School of Medicine, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710061, China.
authors.forename: Bo-feng
authors.initials: BF
authors.lastname: Zhu
authors.forename: Guang
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.forename: Chun-mei
authors.initials: CM
authors.lastname: Shen
authors.forename: Hai-xia
authors.initials: HX
authors.lastname: Qin
authors.forename: Shun-zhi
authors.initials: SZ
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Ya-jun
authors.initials: YJ
authors.lastname: Deng
authors.forename: Shuan-liang
authors.initials: SL
authors.lastname: Fan
authors.forename: Li-bin
authors.initials: LB
authors.lastname: Deng
authors.forename: Feng
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Ping
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Jie
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Fang
authors.forename: Li-ping
authors.initials: LP
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Hong-dan
authors.initials: HD
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Zhen-yuan
authors.initials: ZY
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Rudolf
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Lucas
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D000483:Alleles; D044466:Asian People / Q000235:genetics*; D002681:China; D005006:Ethnicity / Q000235:genetics*; D005787:Gene Frequency; D015234:HLA-A Antigens / Q000235:genetics*; D015235:HLA-B Antigens / Q000235:genetics*; D006239:Haplotypes; D006801:Humans; D010802:Phylogeny
chemical_list: D015234:HLA-A Antigens; D015235:HLA-B Antigens