Comparisons of clinical features of HLA-DRB1*07 positive and negative vitiligo patients in Chinese Han population.

BACKGROUND

Human leucocyte antigen (HLA)-II alleles have been found to be associated with vitiligo in different populations, and several studies also suggested that HLA class II alleles/haplotypes were associated with a different type vitiligo. Of HLA class II alleles, DRB1*07 has consistently shown a positive association with vitiligo in Chinese Han population.

OBJECTIVE

To further explore the relationship between DRB107 and vitiligo and to evaluate the DRB107 effect on the clinical features of vitiligo in Chinese Han population.

METHODS

This study investigated DRB107 allele distribution in 1178 unrelated Chinese vitiligo patients and 1743 healthy controls using polymerase chain reaction/sequence specific primer method and observed clinical differences between DRB107 positive and DRB1*07 negative patients.

RESULTS

The analysis of the 1178 cases and 1743 controls revealed a highly association between DRB107 allele and vitiligo [odds ratio (OR) = 1.97, P = 2.13 × 10(-17) ]. DRB107 positive patients had early disease onset (OR = 1.49, P = 0.001), higher frequency of family history (OR = 1.44, P = 0.006) compared with DRB1*07 negative patients.

CONCLUSIONS

The DRB107 showed significant association with vitiligo in the study population. This study confirmed that DRB107 positive patients had some obvious clinical differences from DRB1*07 negative patients in the Chinese Han population.