THE ASSOCIATION OF AN HLA ?ASTHMA-ASSOCIATED? HAPLOTYPE AND IMMEDIATE HYPERSENSITIVITY IN FAMILIAL ASTHMA

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Abstract
Members (57) from 10 families in which 1 parent and at least 1 child have asthma were studied with dilutional skin tests and RAST [English rye, Bermuda, California brome and Johnson grass] to grass pollens after determination of HLA haplotypes. No direct evidence was found for linkage of a hypothetical asthma locus with HLA or for a significant association of asthma with HLA haplotypes. Linkage between the HLA loci and a gene or genes which allow for the expression of clinical asthma could neither be proven nor disproven due to the small sample size. All of the asthmatic children had positive dilutional skin tests and RAST, suggesting that atopic asthma may be genetically controlled by the HLA chromosome (chromosome 6). Determination of the HLA can increase the value of predictive risk analysis for asthma. Such a determination may be important in the early identification of a child born to a family with atopic asthma.