HLA-B8 AND GRAVES-DISEASE

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  • 1 January 1976
    • journal article
    • research article
    • Vol. 37  (4) , 219-226
Abstract
HL-A typing was carried out in 100 Caucasians with Graves'' disease and compared with 270 healthy controls. Twenty-five HL-A antigens were characterized using a lymphocytotoxicity micro-technique. An increased incidence of HL-A-B8 antigen (35% in patients as compared to 16.3% in controls) with a high degree of statistical significance (P = 0.0002 and corrected P (.times. 25) = 0.005) was revealed. A clear-cut correlation between the presence of HL-A-B8 and different characteristics of the disease, such as sex, age of onset, familial history, exophthalmia, goiter and severity was not observed. The knowledge of the relationships between the HL-A-B8 gene and several autoimmune diseases is a strong argument in favor of the autoimmune nature of Graves'' disease. The association between HL-A-B8 and Graves'' disease could be explained by a close linkage between the second HL-A locus and 1 or several Ir-Ig[immunoglobulin]G loci, occupied in predisposed individuals by predisposing alleles. In these subjects, and antigenic contact with an exogenous etiological agent would induce a pathological immune response, with production of thyroid stimulating IgG.

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