HLA-A, -B, -C polymorphism in a UK Ashkenazi Jewish potential bone marrow donor population

To further our knowledge of HLA polymorphism in different ethnic population s and to increase the number of lull HLA class I typed potential bone marro w donors on the Anthony Nolan Bone Marrow Trust register, HLA-A, -B and -C polymorphism was characterised in 412 Ashkenazi Jewish potential donors. Se rological typings and limited molecular analysis was performed for HLA-A an d -B, and molecular typings were performed for HLA-C, Gene and haplotype fr equencies were calculated using the maximum likelihood method and compared with UK Caucasoid and other Jewish populations. While the specificities ide ntified were in general overlapping with the UK Caucasoid data, a differenc e in the frequencies of individual specificities was observed, For example, HLA-B62, a common serotype found in the UK Caucasoid population, is almost absent in the Ashkenazim. HLA-A, -C, -B haplotype frequencies also differ between the two populations with A26-Cw*1203-B38 and A24-Cw*04-B35 signific ant in the Ashkenazim, whilst Al-Cw*07-B8, a common Caucasoid haplotype, wa s found to be less frequent. Overall the results for the UK Ashkenazi popul ation were most similar to previous reports on Polish/Russian Jews.