Diversity of alleles encoding HLA-B40: Relative frequencies in United States populations and description of five novel alleles

The frequency of each B*40 allele was determined by DNA sequencing in four major United States populations: Caucasians, African Americans, Asians/Paci fic Islanders, and Hispanics. Thirty-two individuals from each ethnic group , who were previously described serologically as B40, B60, or B61, were ran domly selected out of a pool of 82,979 unrelated individuals for allele cha racterization. Out of nine different B*40 alleles identified in this study, B*4001 and B*4002 were the two most frequent B*40 alleles in all the popul ation groups. B*4001 was the primary B*40 allele seen in Caucasians (83%) a nd African Americans (76%), while B*4002 was found in the majority of Hispa nics (62%). The distributions of both alleles were comparable in the Asian/ Pacific Islander population. These two alleles were the only B*40 alleles d etected in Caucasians while four to five additional B*40 alleles were seen in the other population groups. The other B*40 alleles detected in this stu dy included: B*4003 and B*4010 in Asian/Pacific Islanders; B*4012 and B*401 6 in African Americans; and B*4004, B*4006, and B*4027 in Hispanics. Analys is revealed significant differences between Hispanics and all other groups as well as between African Americans and Asian/Pacific Islanders. This repo rt also describes five novel B*40 alleles: B*4019, B*4020, B*4024, B*4027, and B*4028. Human Immunology 61, 808-815 (2000). (C) American Society for H istocompatibility and Immunogenetics, 2000. Published by Elsevier Science I nc.