[HLA-DQ molecules associated with myasthenia gravis in Chinese patients]

Myasthenia Gravis (MG) is an autoimmune disease which is a neuromuscular disorder of autoimmune origin. MG in different races or ethnic groups has different genetic susceptibility. To search for the associations of MG in the Chinese patients with HLA-DQ molecules, PCR-RFLP method was employed for genotyping HLA-DQA1 and -DQB1 genes of MG patients and the normal Chinese. The distributions of alleles of DQA1 and DQB1 in the normal Chinese and the MG patients were listed. The DQB allele, DQB1 * 0302 was positively associated with MG (RR = 2.990, Pc = 0.0307), and a negative association was found for DQA1 * 0501 (RR = 0.4166, Pc = 0.0315). DQ haplotype DQA1 * 0301-DQB1 * 0302 was significantly increased in patients when compared to controls (RR = 7.727, Pc = 0.0109).