Association of HLA class II allele and haplotype frequencies with chronic myelogenous leukemia and age-at-onset of the disease

Chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) is characterized by the presence of Philadelphia chromosome resulting from bcr/abl translocation. To clarify the association between HLA class II allele and haplotype frequencies in CML, 50 patients referred to Hematology Oncology and Bone Marrow Transplantation (BMT) center, Shariaty Hospital, Tehran, Iran, were randomly selected and compared with a group of 80 unrelated healthy blood donor subjects. HLA class II alleles were determined by PCR-SSP method. The results showed that the frequencies of DQB1*03011 (P=0.01) and DQA1*0505 (P=0.05) were higher, while that of DQB1*03032 (P=0.04) was lower in patients than in the controls. Regarding age-at-onset, the frequency of HLA-DRB1*07 (P=0.03) and -DQA1*0201 (P=0.03) alleles were higher in patients younger than 35 years. The most frequent haplotypes in our CML patients were HLA-DRB1*11/-DQB1*03011/-DQA1*0505 (P=0.01) and HLA-DRB1*04/-DQB1*0302/-DQA1*03011 (P=0.02). In conclusion, it is suggested that positive and negative association in certain HLA alleles and haplotypes exist in Iranian patients with CML.