Serological and molecular analysis of HLA in Israeli primary sclerosing cholangitis patients

HLA class I and class II were investigated in 15 Israeli primary sclerosing cholangitis patients and compared to healthy controls. None of the well established serological specificities were found to be associated with the disease. HLA-DR52 is serologically defined, but its subtypes DR52a, DR52b, and DR52c cannot be precisely defined by serological means. Therefore, we have used HLA-DNA typing in order to assign the DR52 splits in PSC patients. Genomic DNA was amplified by PCR, dot-blotted and hybridized with sequence specific oligonucleotide probes defining the known HLA-DR52 associated alleles. Only 4 out of the 15 PSC patients tested were found to express DRB3*0101 the allele that encodes DR52a. Of the remaining 11 patients, 9 expressed DRB3*0202 haplotypes, with 2 patients expressing both DRB3*0101 and DRB3*0202, and the remaining 2 patients expressed no DRB3 allele. Our data indicate that there is no apparent association between PSC and the HLA antigens and alleles studied including the alleles of the DRB3 locus in the Israeli population. Thus HLA pheno/genotyping of PSC patients in the Israelis will not be useful for early and/or differential diagnosis of this disease.