The polymorphism of human leucocyte antigen-G gene in a healthy population of Iran

Human leucocyte antigen-G (HLA-G) is a non-classical HLA class I molecule that unlike the classical HLA, has low polymorphism. This molecule, initially, found on invasive trophoblast cells and is postulated to have mediatory role in maternal-fetal interface. So far 43 alleles of HLA-G gene have been found. Studies on alleles of HLA-G gene could be useful in understanding the genetic variants of HLA-G alleles in Iranian population. The goal of this research was to determine the polymorphism of HLA-G gene in a healthy population of Iran. Genomic DNA was isolated from the whole blood of 102 randomly selected, healthy, unrelated Iranian individuals using salting-out technique followed by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplification of the exons 2 and 3 of HLA-G gene. For the performance of PCR-restriction fragment length polymorphism method, the PCR products were digested with several restriction enzymes and the resulted fragments were analysed using gel electrophoresis. The obtained results indicated nine alleles of HLA-G in Iranian individuals including G*01011 (4%), G*01012 (29.86%), G*01013 (10.8%), G*01015 (1.47%), G*01017 (1.96%), G*01018 (2.45%), G*01041 (29.4%), G*01043 (1.96%) and the null allele G* 0105N (18.1%). According to this study, in the Iranian subjects the most incident alleles were G*01012 and G*01041. The results for the frequency of G*01012 showed some similarity with Caucasians (36.3%).