Immunoglobulin A nephropathy (IgAN) is a common form of chronic glomerulonephritis with unknown pathogenesis. Accumulating evidences have shown the ethnic-specific association between certain human leukocyte antigen (HLA) alleles and IgAN susceptibility. This study was designed to explore the relationship between HLA-DQB1 alleles and disease susceptibility and clinical manifestations of patients with IgAN in southern Han Chinese. A PCR sequence-based typing technique was used to detect HLA-DQB1 alleles in 217 IgAN patients and 229 healthy subjects. Clinical data were collected from each patient at the time of renal biopsy. Twenty HLA-DQB1 alleles were detected in IgAN patients and healthy subjects. High frequency of HLA-DQB1* 060101 and low frequency of HLA-DQB1*030101 were observed in IgAN patients compared with healthy controls. Further stratification analysis revealed that the frequency of DQB1*060101 was significantly higher in patients with urine protein ≥ 1.0 g/24 h than in patients with urine protein < 1.0 g/24 h. In combination with our previous DRB1 results, we also analyzed the association of DRB1-DQB1 haplotypes with IgAN. We found that the frequency of haplotype DRB1*090102-DQB1*060101 was significantly higher [odds ratio (OR) = 4.409, Pc = 0.016], whereas that of HLA-DRB1*070101-DQB1*020101 was significantly lower (OR = 0.194, Pc = 0.016) compared with healthy controls. Our study indicated that HLA-DQB1*060101 alleles may be a potential predictor of high-risk IgAN susceptibility in Chinese Han population.
Keywords: DQB1; IgA nephropathy; association study; haplotype; human leukocyte antigen (HLA).