Distributions of HLA-A and -B alleles and haplotypes in the Yi ethnic minority of Yunnan, China: relationship to other populations.
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.
Zhu
Bo-feng
BF
Department of Forensic Medicine, School of Medicine, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710061, China.
Yang
Guang
G
Shen
Chun-mei
CM
Qin
Hai-xia
HX
Liu
Shun-zhi
SZ
Deng
Ya-jun
YJ
Fan
Shuan-liang
SL
Deng
Li-bin
LB
Chen
Feng
F
Zhang
Ping
P
Fang
Jie
J
Chen
Li-ping
LP
Wang
Hong-dan
HD
Wang
Zhen-yuan
ZY
Lucas
Rudolf
R
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
D015234:HLA-A Antigens; D015235:HLA-B Antigens