Alleles of HLA-DRB1 in Iranian children with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis

This study was conducted on Iranian children with oligoarthritis subtype of juvenile rheumatoid arthritis to determine the association of HLA-DRB1 alleles in Iran. HLA-DRB1 alleles were investigated in 33 Iranian children with oligoarthritis juvenile rheumatoid arthritis and compared with 45 healthy controls. HLA typing was performed by PCR with sequence specific primers in either two groups and followed by direct detection of HLA polymorphism by sequence analysis in patients group. HLA-DRB1*11 was found to be the most frequent allele associated with negative rheumatoid factor oligoarthritis juvenile rheumatoid arthritis in Iran, followed by HLA-DRB1 *08. The frequency of HLA-DRB1*04 and *13 were not significantly different between the two groups. It could be concluded that there was a significant difference in allele frequencies between patients and controls that might help with predicting the susceptibility to oligoarthritis juvenile rheumatoid arthritis.