Discovery of two novel HLA-B alleles, B*46:13:03 and B*15:189, in two Taiwanese volunteer bone marrow donors by sequence-based typing

We report here two novel HLA-B alleles, B*46:13:03 and B*15:189, discovered in two Taiwanese volunteer bone marrow donors. The sequence of B*15:189 has a nucleotide sequence possibly derived from a recombination event between HLA-B*39:01:01 and B*15:01:01:01, while the origin of the sequence B*46:13:03 was less obvious to postulate, considering the low frequency of B*46:13 in the general population and the silent mutations involved. Our report here adds further HLA polymorphism to the growing lists of HLA-B*46 and HLA-B*15 and provides an additional HLA information for donor search programme for patients undergoing transplant.