HIGH-FREQUENCY OF HLA-DQB1-ASTERISK-0301 ALLELE IN PATIENTS WITH PUREOCULAR CICATRICIAL PEMPHIGOID

Two factors, its classification and its immunogenetics, may have contr ibuted to an incomplete understanding of the pathogenic mechanism in t he disease group commonly termed 'cicatricial pemphigoid'. We have pre viously demonstrated that pure ocular cicatricial pemphigoid (OCP) is a unique clinical and immunopathological entity. In an effort to bette r define the immunogenetic characteristics for patients with pure OCP, we performed HLA typing for the class II MHC gene HLA-DQB10301 allel e, by amplifying genomic DNA extracted from patients with polymerase c hain reaction, followed by hybridization with a sequence-specific olig onucleotide probe on dot-blotted and Southern-blotted amplified DNA sa mples. Ninety percent (9/10) of patients with pure OCP had the DQB103 01 allele, in contrast to 52% (17/33) of normal individuals who had th e DQB10301 allele. The high frequency of the HLA-DQB1*0301 allele in patients with pure OCP may point to a distinct immunogenetic pattern a nd possibly a distinct pathomechanism for the disease.