Human Leukocyte Antigen Class I-II Allele Frequencies and Association Between Human Leukocyte Antigen Alleles and ABO Blood Group Antigens

Objectives: This study aims to investigate human leukocyte antigen (HLA) allele frequencies of healthy individuals and to determine whether there is an association between the HLA alleles and ABO blood groups.
Materials and methods: The HLA-A, HLA-B and HLA-DRB1 allele frequency were evaluated in a sample of 450 unrelated individuals at Izmir Tepecik Education and Research Hospital Tissue Typing Laboratory archives. The HLA genotypes of individuals were analyzed by using single-specific primer-polymerase chain reaction (PCR-SSP) or PCR using sequence-specific oligonucleotide (PCR-SSO) methods. Blood groups were evaluated by using microplate agglutination method.
Results: The most common alleles were HLA-A*02, HLA-B*35, and HLA-DRB1*11 in each locus. A and O blood groups were most common, respectively. A statistically significant association between HLA and ABO blood groups was found in HLA-B and HLA-DRB1 loci.
Conclusion: Our study results confirm the other study findings in the Turkish population and also contribute an additional data for further HLA polymorphisms and anthropological studies. We believe that gaining a better understanding on the HLA allele frequencies would help to constitute national transplantation strategies.