Human leukocyte antigen frequency in multiple sclerosis

Abstract

It is commonly believed that the personal predisposition in Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is controlled by polygenetic factors. In the last few years. the attention is focused closely to the Human Leukocyte Antigens (HLA) which are encoded by Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC). In this study, we compared the dispertion of HLA of 50 patients with the diagnosis of definite MS acording to the Poser criteria, with 125 healthy volunteers from the same geographic region. From class I. HLA-A3 and B-41, and from class. only HLA-DR15 were significantly high in the patient group. Our results related with class I group was discordant with the literature. This data did not support the conviction that there was no correlation between MS and class 1 antigens. The high frequency of HLA-DR15 was similiar with the results of a study previously performed in Turkey and a few other studies of Mediterranean countries. The difference between the results of this and other studies performed in our country may be due to the variation of HLA distrubition in different geographic regions, as a result of different ethnical origins.