Diversity of HLA-B*35 Alleles and Haplotypes among Croatians

Abstract

Objectives: Investigation of HLA-B*35 subtypes and haplotypes among Croatians. Methods: 4000 randomly selected unrelated donors from Croatian Bone Marrow Donor Registry were typed for HLA-A, -B and -DRB1 by PCR-LabType®SSO method. Results: Four different B*35 alleles (*35:01, *35:02, *35:03, *35:08) were found. Three of them were with similar frequencies as in other European Caucasians, while HLA-B*35:03 was two times more frequent in our population. Predicted haplotypes were also in accordance with present data from other populations. Conclusions: This study should be of benefit in the unrelated haematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) program. It should facilitate the recipient-donor matching and the selection of a suitable population for further searches.

• HLA-B*35
• Croatian population
• predicted haplotypes
• linkage disequilibrium

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This study was supported by a Grant (214-0000000-3354) from the Ministry of Science, Education and Sports of the Republic of Croatia. It has also benefited from ESF (Europe) COST Grant of Action BM0803 “HLA-NET”.

Declaration of Interest: The authors report no conflict of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.

Notes

Authors Calusic and Grubic contributed equally to this project and should be considered co-first authors.