ANALYSIS OF HLA HAPLOTYPE SEGREGATION IN THE SCHMIEDELEUT-HUTTERITES OF SOUTH-DAKOTA

HLA data from 1,085 South Dakotan Schmiedeleut Hutterites were examine d for evidence of nonrandom transmission of haplotypes. The inheritanc e of haplotypes was viewed as a series of genetic contests between com peting pairs of parental haplotypes using a maximum likelihood approac h first put forward by Carlisle and Woodbury. Haplotype transmission p robabilities were expressed in terms of weights, and the null hypothes is that the inheritance pattern was a random stochastic process, equiv alent to the equality of the weights, was tested via the likelihood ra tio. A total of 1,517 competitions was subjected to analysis, first gl obally using all data, and then for particular haplotypes of interest. Transmission of haplotypes observed to compete with only a single oth er haplotype was also assessed using an exact procedure. No evidence o f preferential transmission of HLA haplotypes was found. These results do not rule out transmission biases that may arise because of selecti on against homozygotes, mechanisms specifically affecting particular a lleles or haplotypes not considered in the present study, or biases ar ising from maternal-fetal interactions.