Characterization of the HLA-DRβ1 third hypervariable region amino acid sequence according to charge and parental inheritance in systemic sclerosis

摘要

BackgroundSpecific HLA class II alleles are associated with systemic sclerosis (SSc) risk, clinical characteristics, and autoantibodies. HLA nomenclature initially developed with antibodies as typing reagents defining DRB1 allele groups. However, alleles from different DRB1 allele groups encode the same third hypervariable region (3rd HVR) sequence, the primary T-cell recognition site, and 3rd HVR charge differences can affect interactions with T cells. We considered 3rd HVR sequences (amino acids 67–74) irrespective of the allele group and analyzed parental inheritance considered according to the 3rd HVR charge, comparing SSc patients with controls.