Relation human leukocyte antigen-A, B, DRB1 alleles and haplotypes with acute leukemia in the Iranian population

Abstract

Population studies have identified various diseases that are significantly associated with particular human leukocyte antigen (HLA) alleles. Allelic distribution of HLA molecules was also determined in acute leukemia patients, although confirmed HLA molecules associated with leukemia susceptibility or protection have not been reported yet. Here we conducted a study to evaluate HLA alleles frequencies and haplotype distributions in Iranian patients with acute leukemia. We investigated HLA alleles and haplotypes frequencies in 37 patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), 69 patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML), and 230 healthy controls. We observed an increased frequency for HLA-DRB1*07 and a decreased frequency of HLA-B*35 in both AML and ALL patients compared to the healthy control group. HLA-A*02, B*13, B*50 were more frequent in patients with AML than controls (P = 0.026; P = 0.001; and P = 0.002, respectively). Whereas, the frequency of HLA-A*11, *24, *33, and DRB1*16 alleles in AML patients were less than controls (P = 0.001; P = 0.0014; P = 0.04; and P = 0.03). HLA-B*38 frequency was determined to be higher in the ALL patients than healthy controls (8.1% vs 2.6%, P = 0.03, OR = 3.56). We also detected A*02/B*52/DRB1*15 haplotype only among patients but not controls which contribute to remarkably elevated risk in both AML and ALL (P = 0.03 and P = 0.02, respectively). These results suggested that HLA-DRB1*07 and HLA-B*35 might predispose Iranian population to develop AML or ALL or protect them against acute leukemia, respectively. Further studies with a large sample size will be required for precise comprehension of HLA roles in susceptibility of to ALL and AML in Iranian population.