Association of HLA with humoral immune responses

The association of HLA with humoral immune responsiveness to various common antigens was studied. Increased frequencies of HLA-A2 in the higher cold agglutinin group and of B5 in the lower heterophil antibody group were observed. But these increases were not statistically significant. Although simple phenotype frequency of neither A9 nor B5 was associated with any group studied, the positive linkage disequilibrium for haplotype of A9-B5 was observed in the higher antibody titer groups of anti-streptolysin O, cold agglutinin and heterophil antibody and in the anti-HBs antigen negative group as well as in the general Japanese population. These results suggest that there may be humoral immune response and/or suppressive genes linked to the chromosomal area where the genes coding A9-B5 exist.