Relative frequencies of DRB1*11 alleles and their DRB3 associations in five major population groups in a United States bone marrow registry

One hundred sixty-one individuals from each of five US population groups, C aucasians (CAU), African Americans (AFA), Asians/Pacific Islanders (API), H ispanics (HIS), and Native Americans (NAT), were randomly selected from a v olunteer bone marrow registry database consisting of 14,452 HLA-DRB1*11 pos itive individuals. This sampling provided at least an 80% probability of de tecting a rare allele that occurred at 1% in the DRB1*11 positive populatio n. Samples were typed for DRB1*11 alleles by polymerase chain reaction-sequ ence specific oligonucleotide probe typing (PCR-SSOP). A total of 10 DRB1*1 1 alleles our of 27 possible alleles were detected. The distribution and di versity of DRB1*11 alleles varied among populations although DRB1*1101 was the predominant DRB1*11 allele in all populations. Caucasians were the leas t diversified; only four common alleles (DRB1*1101-*1104) were observed. As well as the four common alleles, other groups also carried one or two othe r less frequent alleles including DRB1*1105 (API), *1106 (API), *1110 (AFA) , *1114 (HIS), *1115 (NAT), and *1117 (AFA). A subset (418) of these indivi duals were also typed for DRB3 alleles. Most (97.6%) showed a strong associ ation of DRB1*11 with DRB3*0202. Human Immunology 61, 820-827 (2000). (C) A merican Society for Histocompatibility and Immunogenetics, 2000. Published by Elsevier Science Inc.