Following an acute hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection, clearance or persistence is determined in part by the vigor and breadth of the host immune response. Since the human leukocyte antigen system (HLA) is an integral component of the immune response, we hypothesized that the highly polymorphic HLA genes are key determinants of viral clearance. HLA class I and II genes were molecularly typed in ...

Patients with ankylosing spondylitis, psoriatic arthritis, and psoriasis alone were typed for HLA A, B, Cw, and DR antigens, and the antigen frequencies were compared with those in a normal control population and in patients with rheumatoid arthritis. Patients with psoriasis had a significantly raised frequency of Cw6. Those with arthritis in addition to their psoriasis also had raised frequenc...

We describe a method, complementary strand analysis (CSA), for separating alleles potentially from any heterozygous genetic locus. Locus specific PCR is performed generating two allelic products. The antisense strands are isolated and hybridised with a sense reference strand to form a chimeric DNA duplex for each allele which is then separated by non-denaturing PAGE. We demonstrate the applicat...

Objective: To examine the relationship between SNP +39604 in SEEK1 and psoriatic arthritis (PsA) in two distinct Canadian populations. Methods: 103 patients with PsA and 105 ethnically matched controls from Newfoundland and 202 patients with PsA and 100 controls from Ontario were studied. Patients and controls were genotyped for SNP +39604 of SEEK1 by time of flight mass spectrometry, using the...

OBJECTIVE To assess the relative frequency of human leukocyte antigen (HLA) class I and class II in Iraqi multiple sclerosis (MS) patients, and to ascertain whether they offer any etiologic or protective role. METHODS We conducted this study in the Baghdad MS Clinic and Teaching Laboratory Institute, Medical City, Baghdad Teaching Hospital, Baghdad, Iraq from March to July 2004. We enrolled 4...

The inflammatory disease human T cell lymphotropic virus type I (HTLV-I)-associated myelopathy (HAM/TSP) occurs in only 1-2% of HTLV-I-infected individuals and is associated with a high provirus load of HTLV-I. We hypothesize that a person's risk of developing HAM/TSP depends upon the efficiency of their immune response to the virus, which differs between individuals because of polymorphism in ...

The HLA class I polymorphism was studied in a sample of the Albanian population. Ninety-three unrelated healthy Albanians were typed for HLA-A, -B and -Cw antigens by standard microlyphocytotoxicity test. The antigens with the highest frequencies were: HLA-A2 (34.4%), A3 (14.5%) and A1 (12.4%); B51 (19.3%), B35 (12.4%) and B18 (10.2%); Cw4 (16.2%), Cw7 (16.2%) and Cw6 (10.8%). The HLA haplotype...

PURPOSE Stevens-Johnson syndrome (SJS) and toxic epidermal necrolysis (TEN) are very serious forms of drug-induced cutaneous adverse reaction. SJS/TEN induced by certain drug is well known to be associated with some human leukocyte antigen (HLA) gene type. We aimed to explore HLA allele frequencies and their association with SJS/TEN according to culprit drugs in Korea. MATERIALS AND METHODS W...

HLA class-I expression is weak in embryonic stem cells but increases rapidly during lineage progression. It is unknown whether all three classical HLA class-I antigens follow the same developmental program. In the present study, we investigated allele-specific expression of HLA-A, -B, and -C at the mRNA and protein levels on human mesenchymal stem cells from bone marrow and adipose tissue as we...