Identification of a novel HLA-DPB1 allele--DPB1*0102

In this report, we describe the identification of a novel HLA-DPB1 allele, DPB1*0102, which was first found in a 27-year-old woman and was later detected again in another person, from the Han population of China. According to the nucleotide alignment, DPB1*0102 was the most similar to DPB1*0202, with only one nucleotide substitution from A to G at position 192 among three closely related alleles--DPB1*0202, DPB1*2401 and DPB1*0501. This substitution was a non-synonymous one, which caused a change of amino acid from E to K at codon 69 of DP beta-chain in the mature protein.