The aim of this study was to determine the frequency and specificity of HLA-A and B antibodies in multiparous mothers in the Malaysian population. 1,100 maternal serum samples obtained during normal childbirth were screened against a panel of 100 lymphocytes with known HLA antigen types for HLA antibodies by the complement dependent lymphocyte microcytotoxicity dye exclusion test. From the total number of 1,100 samples of maternal serum that were screened for HLA antibodies only 205 specimens (18.6%) tested positive for antibodies. The percentage of maternal sera which contained HLA-B specificities (10.6%) were significantly higher than those which contained HLA-A specificities (3.0%). Sixty maternal serum samples (5.5%) had high enough titres to be utilised as tissue typing reagents. Thirty nine maternal serum samples (3.5%) contained monospecific HLA antibodies. In this study the most common monospecific HLA antibodies characterised included the following specificities: A2, B5, B17 and B40. Malaysian multiparous mothers of gravida 3, 4 and 5 had a higher frequency for producing HLA-antibodies.
T cell receptor (TCR)-like antibodies, obtained with the use of phage display technology, sandwich the best of the both arms of the adaptive immune system. In this study, in vitro selections against the latency associated Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) heat shock protein 16 kDa antigen (16 kDa) presented by HLA-A*011 and HLA-A*24 were carried out with the use of a human domain phage antibody library. TCR-like domain antibodies (A11Ab and A24Ab) were successfully generated recognizing 16 kDa epitopes presented by HLA-A*011 and HLA-A*24 molecules respectively. Both antibodies were found to be functional in soluble form and exhibited strong binding capacity against its targets. The results obtained support the future evaluation of these ligands for the development of diagnostic and therapeutic tools for tuberculosis infection.
We investigated the association of the HLA genes in Malaysian patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and their associations with the clinical manifestations in 160 SLE patients (99 Chinese and 61 Malays) and 107 healthy control individuals (58 Chinese and 49 Malays) were studied. Sequence specific primer amplification (PCR-SSP) phototyping techniques were used to analyse 25 HLA-A allele groups, 31 HLA-DR allele groups and 9 HLA-DQ allele groups. Appreciable increases in allele frequencies of HLA-A*11, DRB1*0701, DRB1*1601-1606, DRB5*01-02 and DQB1*05, and decrease in HLA-DRB1*1101-1121, 1411, DRB1*1201-3, DRB1*1301-22, DRB3*0101, 0201, 0202, 0203, 0301 and DQB1*0301, 1304 in SLE patients compared with healthy control individuals. However, after Bonferroni correction (p(c)<0.05) only HLA-A*1101, 1102, DRB5*01-02, DQB1*05, DRB1*1201-3, DRB3*0101, 0201, 0202, 0203, 0301 and DQB1*0301, 0304 remained significant. Allele frequencies of DRB1*0701 and DRB4*0101101, 0102, 0103, DQB1*05, DRB1*1301-22, DRB3*0101, 0201, 0202, 0203, 0301 and DQB1*0301, 0304 were significantly increased in Malay SLE patients compared with healthy control individuals. In contrast, Chinese SLE patients had increased allele frequencies of DRB1*1601-1606, DQB1*05, DRB1*1201-3, DRB3*0101, 0201, 0202, 0203, 0301, DRB3*0101, 0201, 0202, 0203, 0301 and DQB1*0301, 0304 compared with healthy control individuals. HLA-A*6801-02 and DRB1*1601-1606 frequencies appeared elevated in a subset of patients with serositis and DRB1* 0401-1122 frequency was elevated in those displaying neurologic disorder. However, unequivocal evidence of these associations would require investigation of substantially larger cohorts. On the whole, our findings suggest that HLA allele associations with SLE are race specific in Malays and Chinese.
Study site: SLE clinic, University of Malaya Medical Centre (UMMC), Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
The human leukocyte antigen alleles have been implicated as probable genetic markers in predicting the susceptibility and/or protection to severe manifestations of dengue virus (DENV) infection. In this present study, we aimed to investigate for the first time, the genotype variants of HLA Class 1(-A and -B) of DENV infected patients against healthy individuals in Malaysia.