A single center study of protective and susceptible HLA alleles and haplotypes with end-stage renal disease in China

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is becoming a global public health problem and usually cause End-Stage Renal Disease (ESRD) in the end of progression. To analyze the associations of HLA-A, -B, -C, -DRB1 and -DQB1 alleles at high resolution with ESRD in Jiangsu province of China, a total of 499 unrelated patients with ESRD from the First Affiliated Hospital with Nanjing Medical University and 1584 healthy controls from Jiangsu Branch of Chinese Marrow Donor Program (CMDP) were genotyped at HLA-A, -B, -C, -DRB1 and -DQB1 loci. Statistical analysis was applied to compare the differences of HLA allele frequencies between patients with ESRD and healthy controls. As results, no protective allele at A locus was found and the susceptible alleles were A*11:01 and A*31:01. At B locus, B*15:01, B*55:02 and B*39:05 emerged as susceptible alleles, whereas no protective allele was found. At C locus, C*06:02 and C*07:01 emerged as protective alleles and no susceptible allele was found. At DRB1 locus, six alleles including DRB1*03:01, DRB1*04:03, DRB1*04:04, DRB1*04:05, DRB1*11:01 and DRB1*12:02 emerged as susceptible alleles, while DRB1*15:01 emerged as a protective allele. At DQB1 locus, DQB1*02:01, DQB1*03:01, DQB1*03:02 and DQB1*04:01 emerged as susceptible alleles, while DQB1*06:02 and DQB1*06:09 emerged as protective alleles. Haplotype A*11:01-C*03:03-B*15:01-DRB1*11:01-DQB1*03:01 containing four susceptible alleles was regarded as the most susceptible haplotype. The susceptible alleles and haplotypes might be used as some important risk classification markers. Besides, in the consanguineous renal transplantation, it would be very beneficial for the long-term survival of renal transplant patients to avoid the susceptible alleles and haplotypes in selecting optimal donors.