SEQUENCING AND POPULATION ANALYSIS OF 4 NOVEL HLA-DPA1 ALLELES

We determined the base sequences of the HLA-DPA1 gene from four B-lymphoblastoid cell lines (CB6B, LKT3, AMAI, and T7526) that showed distinct electrophoretic patterns of single-stranded polymerase chain reaction products of the HLA-DPA1 gene. The novel HLA-DPA1 alleles of CB6B, LKT3, AMAI, and T7526 were designated DPA1*02021, DPA1*02022, DPA1*0301, and DPA1*0401, respectively. Although there was only one base substitution between DPA1*02021 and DPA1*02022, the single-strand conformation polymorphism of these two alleles was clearly demonstrated by electrophoresis in a nondenaturing polyacrylamide gel containing 10% glycerol. In addition, we genotyped for the HLA-DPA1 gene of healthy unrelated Oriental individuals-i.e., 227 Japanese, 88 Papua New Guineans, and 41 Buyi-Chinese-to demonstrate the ethnic distribution of the HLA-DPA1 alleles.