title: Associations of HLA alleles with specific language impairment.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Human leukocyte antigen (HLA) loci have been implicated in several neurodevelopmental disorders in which language is affected. However, to date, no studies have investigated the possible involvement of HLA loci in specific language impairment (SLI), a disorder that is defined primarily upon unexpected language impairment. We report association analyses of single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and HLA types in a cohort of individuals affected by language impairment.
  
  
  METHODS
  We perform quantitative association analyses of three linguistic measures and case-control association analyses using both SNP data and imputed HLA types.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Quantitative association analyses of imputed HLA types suggested a role for the HLA-A locus in susceptibility to SLI. HLA-A A1 was associated with a measure of short-term memory (P = 0.004) and A3 with expressive language ability (P = 0.006). Parent-of-origin effects were found between HLA-B B8 and HLA-DQA1*0501 and receptive language. These alleles have a negative correlation with receptive language ability when inherited from the mother (P = 0.021, P = 0.034, respectively) but are positively correlated with the same trait when paternally inherited (P = 0.013, P = 0.029, respectively). Finally, case control analyses using imputed HLA types indicated that the DR10 allele of HLA-DRB1 was more frequent in individuals with SLI than population controls (P = 0.004, relative risk = 2.575), as has been reported for individuals with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  These preliminary data provide an intriguing link to those described by previous studies of other neurodevelopmental disorders and suggest a possible role for HLA loci in language disorders.
authors.forename: Ron
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Nudel
authors.forename: Nuala H
authors.initials: NH
authors.lastname: Simpson
authors.forename: Gillian
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Baird
authors.forename: Anne
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: O'Hare
authors.forename: Gina
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Conti-Ramsden
authors.forename: Patrick F
authors.initials: PF
authors.lastname: Bolton
authors.forename: Elizabeth R
authors.initials: ER
authors.lastname: Hennessy
authors.forename: Anthony P
authors.initials: AP
authors.lastname: Monaco
authors.forename: Julian C
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Knight
authors.forename: Bruce
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Winney
authors.forename: Simon E
authors.initials: SE
authors.lastname: Fisher
authors.affiliation: Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, University of Oxford, Oxford OX3 7BN, UK. dianne@well.ox.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Dianne F
authors.initials: DF
authors.lastname: Newbury