Determination of HLA class II alleles by genotyping in a Manchu population in the northern part of China and its relationship with Han and Japanese populations

Abstract: The genetic polymorphism of the HLA class II loci was investigated in a Manchu population resident in the northern part of China and compared with those of other Asian populations including Japanese and Han. In 8 DQA1 alleles, the most frequent allele was DQA1*03 with the gene frequency of 25.5%. Of 15 DQB1 alleles tested, 11 were observed and the most common allele was DQB1*0301 with the gene frequency of 24.5%. Among 19 DPB1 alleles, 11 were detected and DPB1*0501 (43.8%) was the most frequent allele as observed in other Asian populations such as Japanese, Chinese and Korean. Of 43 DRB1 alleles tested, 21 were detected and DRB1*0901 (14.0%), *1501 (11.0%), *1201 (11.0%), *07 (9.0%) and *1401 (9.0%) were highly predominant and account for the high frequencies of DR9, DR2, DR5, DR7 and DR6. In the DRB3 gene (DR52), DRB3*0202 (18.0%) was the most frequent. With respect to the DRB4 gene (DR53), the gene frequency of DRB4*0101 was 35.0%. Of 3 DRB5 alleles detected, DRB5*0101 (11.0%) was highly predominant. Comparison of HLA class II allele frequencies in Manchu with those in Japanese and Han Chinese populations (South & North) detected some significant differences and genetic divergence between these Oriental populations. The dendrogram constructed by the neighbor‐joining (NJ) method based on the allele frequencies of DQA1, DQB1, DPB1 and DRB1 of 10 representative populations over the world suggested that Manchu is the closest, but at the same genetic distance to both Northern and Southern Han Chinese.