FREQUENCY OF HLA-DPB1 ALLELES IN A SPANISH POPULATION: THEIR CONTRIBUTION TO RHEUMATOID ARTHRITIS SUSCEPTIBILITY

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Abstract
HLA‐DPB1 allele frequencies in 181 unrelated control individuals and 70 rheumatoid factor‐positive RA patients from Seville (Spain) were determined using oligonucleotide typing methods. All frequencies shown concern the percentage of individuals positive for a certain allele. HLA‐DPB1*0401 was the most common DPB1 allele in the healthy individuals, possessed by 65.7% of them. In addition to HLA‐DPB1 *0401, only the following alleles were found in normal subjects at frequencies greater than 10%: DPB1*0101 (15.5%), DPB1*0201 (12.2%), DPB1*0301 (16.6), and DPB1*0402 (29.3%). When HLA‐DPB1 allelic frequencies were compared between seropositive RA patients and controls, a negative association for DPB1*0301 and DPB1*0401 was found in RA patients, although it failed to reach statistical significance after correction for the number of comparisons made. The other DPB1 alleles exhibited almost identical frequencies in both groups. However, when only DR4+ patients and controls were considered, the decrease in the frequency of the DPB1*0301 and DPB1*0401 alleles lacked statistical significance. On the other hand, when DR4‐ RA patients and controls were compared, the frequency of DPB1*0301 was found decreased significantly again, even more than in the whole group of patients.