[A comparative study of HLA-A locus in northern and southern Chinese by means of PCR/SSOP typing]

OBJECTIVE: To compare the HLA-A locus in a population selected from Beijing (northern group) with that in a population selected from Guangzhou (southern group). METHODS: HLA typing was performed by using PCR/SSOP method. A pair of primer and 54 probes were used. RESULTS: In 18 alleles identified, the differences in gene frequency between northern and southern Chinese were found. In northern group, A*0205, 0210 and 2901 were absent, and the frequencies of A*2601, 3001 and 3101 were higher than those of southern group; while in southern group, A*3103, 3201 and 6801 were absent, the frequencies of A*0203 and 1101 were higher than those of northern group; and in addition, six subtypes of A2 serological specificity, namely A*0201, 0203, 0205, 0206, 0207 and 0210, were found, in which A*0201 predominated. CONCLUSION: There are some differences in the genetic background of northern and southern Chinese. A2 subtypes have important implications for unrelated-donor transplantation.