Genetic typing of HLA class II genes in Swedish populations: application to forensic analysis

In an attempt to determine the value of DNA based typing of HLA class II loci to forensic analysis, allele and genotype frequencies at DQA1, DQB1, DPB1, and DRB1 were determined in samples from two Swedish populations using hybridization with sequence specific oligonucleotides to PCR amplified DNA. Significant allele frequency differences were observed at the DQB1 and DRB1 loci between the two populations, as well as between one of the Swedish and a Norwegian population. The average heterozygosity varies between 0.74 to 0.91 and the power of discrimination between 0.90 to 0.98, with the highest values obtained for the DRB1 locus. The probability of genotype identity by chance differs on average 2% between the populations. When applied to a paternity case with one parent deceased and a criminal case, typing of class II loci proved in both cases informative. Analyses of DR and DQ genes does not increase the power of discrimination, due to strong linkage, but offers through the reconstruction of putative haplotypes an internal control for the consistency of the typing results at several loci. Typing of the DRB1 and DPB1 loci was found to result in an approximate combined average probability of genotype identity by chance of one in a thousand.