COMPARATIVE-ANALYSIS OF HLA POLYMORPHISM AT THE SEROLOGIC AND MOLECULAR-LEVEL IN MOROCCAN AND ASHKENAZI JEWS

The Jewish people comprise two major groups, one encompassing the Jews of Ashkenazi (Central and Eastern European) origin and the other incl uding those of Sephardic (Middle Eastern and North African) descent. T o the latter belong the Jews of Moroccan stock, who form the largest J ewish subgroup among the non-Ashkenazi population living in Israel. As the members of each of these groups differ in physiognomy and life st yle, it was of interest to investigate whether these differences are a lso reflected in their respective HLA compositions. To this end, 132 s ubjects of Ashkenazi and 113 individuals of Moroccan origin residing i n Israel were tested and the results compared with data for other popu lations made available by the 11th International Histocompatibility Wo rkshop. Comparison between their HLA profiles and those of non-Jews re vealed that the Jewish groups in some aspects resembled one another bu t in others showed disparities. The dissimilarities between the variou s groups are expressed in terms of gene and haplotype frequencies, as well as in HLA-disease associations (as for example rheumatoid arthrit is, erosive lichen planus, primary Sjogren's syndrome, pemphigus vulga ris). However, both Jewish groups shared some unique features with res pect to HLA class II allelic frequencies, pointing to a common ancestr y.