Breast Cancer Is Associated with Increased HLA-DRB1*11:01 and HLA-DRB1*10:01 Allele Frequency in a Population of Patients from Central Italy

ABSTRACT

The relationship between HLA-DRB1 allele polymorphism and breast cancer (BC) development is still unclear and needs further investigation.

To address this issue, we analyzed HLA-DRB1 allele frequency (AF) by sequence-based typing (SBT) in 47 patients from central Italy with BC and 156 sex and age-matched healthy controls. Two hundred ninety-seven individuals from the same region were utilized as historical controls. Pearson’s chi-square analysis with Yate’s correction or Fisher’s Exact test with Bonferroni’s correction, as appropriate, were used to compare HLA-DRB1 AF differences in patients and controls.

A total of 36 HLA-DRB1 alleles were identified. A detailed study showed that HLA-DRB1*11:01 and HLA-DRB1*10:01 alleles are significantly associated with increased BC risk. In particular, HLA-DRB1*11:01 AF was significantly higher in patients with BC than in healthy females and historical controls, even following Bonferroni’s correction (stage I-II BC patients vs historical controls p<0.00; stage III-IV BC patients vs female healthy controls p=0.025 and historical controls p<0.00). The HLA-DRB1*10:01 allele was also positively associated with BC as evidenced by a significantly higher AF in patients with BC than in healthy controls (BC patients stage I-II vs historical controls corrected p =0.01).

These results suggest that both HLA-DRB1*11:01 and HLA-DRB1*10:01 AF could represent interesting markers in patients at risk of developing BC.

KEYWORDS:

• Breast cancer
• HLA
• PCR-SBT
• HLA-DRB1*11:01
• HLA-DRB1*10:01

Acknowledgments

We thank Prof. Giulio Spagnoli for helpful discussion during the preparation of the manuscript.

Disclosure

The authors have declared no conflicts of interest.

Additional information

Funding

G.S. was supported by the IG10555 grant from the Italian Association for Cancer Research (AIRC).