P210 KIR haplotype and genotype distribution in egyptian unrelated healthy donors

Abstract

Natural killer (NK) cells are potent immune cells responsible for antitumor and anti-infection immune responses. NK cells are regulated by a balance of interaction of activating and inhibitory receptors mainly killer cell immunoglobulin like receptors (KIR) with their HLA class I ligands on target cells. Within human populations, large variations in the distribution of KIR haplotypes and genotypes are observed. According to Allele frequency.net there are over 200 reports on population studies concerning KIR genes. This study is the first to report KIR genotype and haplotype data in unrelated healthy Egyptian donors for the potential use either in disease association studies, for better understanding of KIR genotypes in Egyptian population and the use of these data in better selection of donors in stem cell transplantation. Fifty Healthy blood donors’ samples were used for this study. blood donors were either donating blood directly into blood bank of National cancer institute or gathered from donation campaigns supervised by Blood bank of National cancer institute. Genomic DNA was extracted and KIR genotypes were determined using SSP methodology and haplotypes were assigned according to KIR gene content. Fourteen KIR genes were studied mainly framework genes (2DL4,3DL2,3DL3) which were found in all samples, KIR 2DL1 gene was found in 100% of subjects. Also, 2DL2, 2DL3, 2DL5, 2DS1, 2DS2, 2DS3, 2DS4, 2DS5, 3DL1 and 3DS1 were genotyped and accordingly KIR AA haplotype was found in 13.5% of subjects and KIR Bx haplotype was found in 86.5% of subjects. This is the first report to describe KIR genotype and haplotype distribution data in healthy unrelated blood donors for further correlation with other populations.