HLA Class I in Egyptian patients with Behçet’s disease: new association with susceptibility, protection, presentation and severity of manifestations

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Behçet’s disease is an autoimmune disease with diverse clinical manifestations with vasculitis being the hallmark of the disease. The aim of this work is to study the genetic association between human leukocyte antigen (HLA) class-I molecules of Egyptians with Behçet’s disease and the disease susceptibility and clinical patterns.

Methods: Fifty-seven patients diagnosed with Behçet’s disease according to the 1990 International Study Group (ISG) criteria for Behçet’s disease coming from Egyptian origin up to the third grandfather were included in the study. Healthy controls were taken from HLA Class-I case control studies in Egyptian population yielding a pool of 221 healthy controls. HLA Class-I typing for patients was done using Reverse Sequence specific oligonucleotide probes (rSSO).

Results: Male patients represented 89% of the sample. Mean age of onset was 25.81 (± 6.7) years and mean disease duration was 9.47 (± 7.4) years. Behçet’s disease was associated with HLA-A*24 and HLA-B*42 (p = 0.001) and highly associated with HLA-A*68 and B*15 and B*51 (p < 0.001). While HLA A*03 and B*52 were protective for Behçet’s (p = 0.002 and 0.007). Interestingly, HLA-B*51 and HLA-A*68 (p = 0.005 and 0.023) were associated with the blinding eye disease. HLA-B*51 was protective from Neurological and vascular involvement (p = 0.005 and 0.032, respectively).

Conclusion: Behçet’s disease is associated with HLA Class-I A*24, A*68 and B*15, B*42 and B*51 in Egyptian patients while A*03 and B*52 were found to be protective. Interestingly, HLA B*51 and A*68 could be considered as poor prognostic factor for eye involvement.

KEYWORDS:

• Behçet’s disease
• genetic predisposition to disease
• genetic protection from disease
• HLA antigens

Acknowledgments

The study was part of the Master thesis project done By Mohanad M. Elfishawi for the fulfillment of master’s degree in Rheumatology and Rehabilitation at Cairo University. The study was approved by the research committee in the Rheumatology and Rehabilitation department as well as the Faculty of Medicine Research Committee.

Declaration of interest

All co-authors of the manuscript have no conflict of interest to declare.

Additional information

Funding

The study was funded by the research grant from Cairo University for master’s degree fulfillment.