Anti-glomerular
basement membrane (GBM) disease, a rare
autoimmune disorder, is associated with
HLA-DR15 genotype in Caucasian and Japanese populations. But the distribution of
HLA-DRB1 alleles in Chinese patients with anti-GBM disease and their association with clinical characteristics of anti-GBM disease are to be determined. The present study analyzed the
HLA-DRB1 alleles by sequence based typing in 44 Chinese patients with anti-GBM disease and 200 healthy controls. The effects of DRB1
alleles on susceptibility to anti-GBM disease were examined by a relative predispositional effects (RPEs) method. The clinical and
pathological data of the patients were collected and analyzed. The DRB11501
allele was significantly associated with anti-GBM disease (p=1.597x10(-7)). The RPEs test also showed a significant increased
frequency of DRB10404 in anti-GBM disease (p=0.037). Interestingly, the patients with DRB11501 or 0404 had more crescent formation in
glomeruli than those without the two
alleles (p=0.021). But the DRB10404 was rare in both patients and control groups, which indicates that the importance of the 0404
allele is limited in anti-GBM disease. We conclude that the HLA-DRB11501
allele is a
genetic marker for susceptibility to anti-GBM disease.
