RESEARCH ARTICLE
HLA-G in Amerindians: Epidemiology and Worldwide Population Comparison
Antonio Arnaiz-Villena*, Mercedes Enriquez-de-Salamanca$, Jose Palacio-Gruber, Ignacio Juarez, Ester Muñiz, Jorge Nieto, Cristina Campos, Jose Manuel Martin-Villa
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2018Volume: 5
First Page: 1
Last Page: 12
Publisher ID: MEDJ-5-1
DOI: 10.2174/1874220301805010001
Article History:
Received Date: 9/11/2017Revision Received Date: 23/12/2017
Acceptance Date: 27/12/2017
Electronic publication date: 11/1/2018
Collection year: 2018

open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
Background:
HLA-G molecules are immunosuppressive and avoid fetal rejection by giving negative signals to maternal immune system from fetal trophoblast cell surface. HLA-G genes have been associated to different pathologies: Spontaneous abortions, autoimmunity, tumor progression, transplant rejection and infection. In addition, different World populations show remarkable different HLA-G allele frequencies in the allele that does not produce a full HLA-G molecule (HLA-G*05N); this allele is almost absent in studied Amerindians.
Objectives:
The aim is to study HLA-A.-B,-DRB1 and –G alleles and extended haplotypes in Amerindians for the first time. This may be useful to asses HLA-G epidemiology, association to disease and Preventive Medicine in Amerindians.
Methods:
HLA-A,-B and -DRB1 have been typed by using standard automatic protocols. HLA-G alleles have been detected by direct HLA-G exon 2, exon 3 and exon 4 DNA sequencing. Computer calculations have been done by specific standard methods.
Results:
HLA-A,-B,-DRB1 and –G extended haplotypes have been calculated in Amerindians for the first time. Also, their HLA-G frequencies have been compared with worldwide populations.
Conclusion:
Low frequencies of null HLA-G*01:05N allele are found in Amerindians. The extended haplotypes with this allele bear other typical Amerindian HLA-DRB1 alleles and its origin is discussed. HLA-G allele frequency profile is closer to that of Europeans than to that of Far East Asians. Our findings are useful to Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology associated to Fertility and HLA-G associated pathology and transplantation.