Identification of a novel HLA-DRB1 allele (HLA-DRB1*111902*)

In this paper, we report a new HLA-DRB1 allele identified in a male acute myeloid leukaemia Chinese patient. This sample was initially typed as DRB1*11XX using commercial polymerase chain reaction-sequence-specific primers kit. When it was typed using a chip-based sequence-specific oligonucleotide technique, a novel hybridization pattern that does not match any known alleles was observed. Through sequencing, we have identified this allele as a new HLA-DRB1 allele, which was later named HLA-DRB1*111902 by the WHO Nomenclature Committee. The sequence of this new allele differs from DRB1*111901 by one nucleotide (from G to C) at 203nt of exon 2 but does not cause any amino acid substitution.