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[HLA and narcolepsy. Apropos of 28 cases including 2 negative HLA-DR2]
C Confavreux1, L Gebuhrer, H Betuel
1Service de Neurologie, Hôpital Neurologique de Lyon.
Abstract:
Association between narcolepsy and HLA-DR2 antigen is the strongest so far described between an HLA antigen and a disease. Among 28 narcoleptic patients, we found two HLA-DR2 negative cases: a caucasoid woman also suffering from dystrophia myotonica and a negroid. All of our patients were HLA-DQW1 positive. An hypothetical narcolepsy susceptibility gene could be located in the HLA region, closer to the DQ than to the DR gene. It could be a pathologic allele of a sleep controlling gene in linkage disequilibrium with DQW1. Presence of DQW1 is a quasi-requisite for the expression of narcolepsy. It is not sufficient as it is observed in 70 p. 100 of controls.