Strong association of idiopathic membranous nephropathy (IMN) with HLA-DR 3 and MT-2 without involvement of HLA-B 18 and no association to BfF1.

The present study investigated the distribution of HLA-antigens and Bf alleles in a group of 21 patients suffering from biopsy proven Idiopathic Membranous Nephropathy (IMN). A statistically significant increase of HLA-DR3 (76.2%) was detected in the patient group as well as an increase of MT-2 (86%), which is a new supertypic specificity defined within the 8th International Histocompatibility Workshop 1980. No association between BfF1 and IMN can be deduced from this study. Only the common Bf alleles (BfFF, BfFS, BfSS) were found in the patient group presented here. Also the previously reported association between HLA-B18 and IMN was not corroborated by this study. Not a single IMN-patient typed positive for HLA-B18. Thus the presence of two different HLA-DR-Bf-B linkage groups (HLA-DR3/BfF1/HLA-B18 and HLA-DR3/Bf; all alleles/HLA-B8) may point to at least two different immunological mechanisms underlying IMN.