Characterization of a new HLA-B allele, HLA-B*5312, and re-evaluation of the published sequences of the untranslated regions of HLA-B*35 and HLA-B*53.

We report a novel human leukocyte antigen (HLA)-B allele, HLA-B5312. Compared with HLA-B530101, there is one silent substitution at nucleotide 438 and two non-synonymous substitutions at nucleotides 431 and 440, causing a change of the amino acid sequence (Asn-->Ser at codon 77 and Ile-->Thr at codon 80, respectively) within the Bw4 epitope. In contrast to the published sequences (IMGT/HLA Database, version 2.16.0, January 2007), we found that HLA-B530101 had a C instead of a T at nucleotide -221, whereas HLA-B350101 had a C instead of an A at nucleotide 2992. According to our sequencing results, HLA-B5312 resembles HLA-B350101 regarding its sequence of the untranslated regions. HLA-B5312 may have been the result of a double crossing over event during which HLA-B350101 adopted a Bw4 motif.