HLA and Japanese MS.

Determination of HLA-A, -B and -C types in 43 Japanese patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) and of DR type in 25 MS patients was carried out using antisera from the 7th International Histocompatibility Workshop. The results were compared with 46 controls typed simultaneously. Twenty-three patients were also tested for HLA-Dw2. The conclusions were: 1) There were no significantly higher occurrences of HLA-A3, B7, Dw2 or DRw2 in Japanese MS. 2) Japanese MS might nevertheless be associated with the human major histocompatibility complex, because HLA-B40 was significantly less frequent in MS and two anti HLA-DRw sera, 7w008 and 034, reacted positively more often against lymphocytes from MS patients.