Background: Different studies have demonstrated that a small proportion of healthy individuals receiving the hepatitis B (HB) vaccine do not produce protective levels of anti-HB antibody, a phenomenon which could be linked to certain human leukocyte an-tigen (HLA) class-II alleles or haplotypes. Objectives: The present study was under-taken to determine the frequency of HLA class-II alleles in ...

The HLA class I molecules identified serologically as HLA-B27 are highly associated with ankylosing spondylitis and related human disorders. All known HLA-B27 amino acid sequences contain a cysteine residue at position 67; no other published HLA class I sequence contains a cysteine within the hypervariable region of the alpha 1 domain, which extends from amino acid residues 63-84. To investigat...

BACKGROUND ABO-incompatible live donor liver transplant (ABOi-LDLT) is being widely done to bridge the gap of demand and supply of organs. Different desensitization regimes are being used to reduce titer of blood group antibodies for successful transplant and accommodation of graft. The authors used cascade plasmapheresis (CP) to bring down titer of naturally occurring blood group antibody to 1...

Antibodies to HLA mismatches are specific for epitopes rather than antigens. HLAMatchmaker considers each HLA antigen as a string of eplets that represent key elements of epitopes. Certain antibodies are specific for single eplets, but recent studies have demonstrated that epitopes defined by eplet pairs always involve one nonself-eplet and a self-eplet shared between the immunizing antigen and...

The definition of anti-HLA antibody profile in highly sensitized patients on a waiting list is crucial when virtual crossmatch is used in organ allocation systems, but also when used to identify the true deleterious anti-HLA antibodies. Here we propose different levels of risk based on the results of anti-HLA antibody testing in neat serum (N) and after sera dilution (DIL) and C1q test in 18 hi...

BACKGROUND The presence of anti-cyclic citrullinated peptide autoantibody is highly specific for rheumatoid arthritis. Certain HLA-DR4 (HLA-DRB1*04) alleles, also known as the "shared epitope," are associated with increased susceptibility to RA. In addition, these alleles may also have relevance for disease outcome. Anti-CCP antibody positivity has been associated with the presence of HLA-DR4 a...

BACKGROUND Although HLA-C matching is not considered in kidney transplantation, several reports have shown that anti-HLA-C antibodies are associated with rejection and graft failure. DNA-based typing methods can now accurately determine HLA-C compatibility and sensitive assays such as Luminex with single alleles can identify HLA-C antibodies. HLA-C displays considerable amino acid polymorphism ...