Association between multiple sclerosis and HLA class II and antigen processing genes in a Shanghai population
Association between multiple sclerosis and HLA class II and antigenprocessing genes in a Shanghai population$$$$ ZHANG Yong*, ZHU Xiaochun, SHEN Fanxia et al.*Shanghai Second Medical University, Shanghai Institute of Immunology, Shanghai 200025 【 Abstract 】 Objective To investigate the possible association between multiple sclerosis(MS) and HLA class Ⅱ genes as well as antigenprocessing genes. Methods Twenty one patients with MS and 89 normal individuals, all randomly selected, were genotyped for HLA class Ⅱ (HLADRB1, DQA1, DQB1) and antigenprocessing genes(TAP1, TAP2, and LMP2) with PCRSSO and PCRRFLP methods. Results Compared with the healthy controls, in the patient group the allelic frequencies of DRB1*0405(P0.05), DQA1*0601(P=0.047 7) and DQB1*0502 (P= 0.0025) were significantly increased and DQA1*0201(P=0.020), DPB1*0201(P=0.0170) and DRB1*07(P=0.025) were significantly decreased. In addition, the frequency of haplotype DRB1*0405DQA1*0301DQB1*0401 was also significantly increased in the patient group. However, only DQB1*0502 remained significant after the P values were corrected for the number of comparisons. No difference was found in the distribution of antigenprocessing genes between the normal controls and the MS patients. Conclusions 1) In this Shanghai population the pattern of association between HLA class Ⅱ and MS are different not only from those obtained from Northern European Caucasians but also from those from the Hongkong Chinese population. 2) No association was found between MS and the antigenprocessing genes studied. 【 Subject words 】 Multiple sclerosis HLA class Ⅱ Antigenprocessing genes