Human leucocyte antigens (class I and II) in central Taiwan aborigines: can these explain the observed differences in rheumatic disease patterns compared with Han Chinese?

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Abstract
Sir, The population of Taiwan includes four ethnic groups. The major inhabitants are Taiwanese, whose ancestors migrated from the Fukin province 400 yr ago. Taiwanese and other island residents (including Hakka, who originally moved from Guangdong province, and Mainlanders, who moved from Mainland China after World War II) are Han and Mongoloid people. An important minority is the aborigines, who were the early settlers of the island. The ancient aborigines in Taiwan probably moved from Southeast Asia and then migrated from Taiwan to western and central Polynesia and New Zealand [1]. Gout is a common rheumatic disease in Taiwan aborigines. A previous study of this population showed that hyperuricaemia and gout were common in Taiwan aborigines, and the estimated prevalences of the two diseases were 11.7 and 41.4% respectively [2]. In contrast, rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and ankylosing spondylitis (AS) were uncommon in aborigines compared with Han people. In a preliminary study by Chou et al. [3], the prevalence of RA was 0.6% and that of AS was 0.3% in Han Chinese; in aborigines the combined prevalence of the two diseases was less than 0.05% [more than 2000 aborigines were investigated, but none was confirmed to have either RA or AS (unpublished results)]. In the present study, antigenic specificities of the class I loci HLA‐A, HLA‐B and the class II locus HLA‐DR were determined simultaneously in aborigines and Taiwan Chinese (Han people) in order to understand the immunogenetic differences between the two groups and the relationship between the prevalent rheumatic diseases and HLA genes in aborigines.