Allele-specific HLA-B*15 typing by PCR-SSP and its application to four distinct ethnic populations.

We present a set of primer mixes for the allele-specific typing of the HLA-B15 group by PCR-SSP. The set comprises 46 primer mixes which are designed to unequivocally resolve all but two of the 666 possible combinations of the B15 alleles, B1501-37 (B1536 sequence unavailable). A core subset of 34 of the 46 mixes can be used alone to give a high resolution B15 typing set. This allows for the identification of each B15 allele when present as the only B15 allele and the majority of the possible B15 homozygotic combinations. The method was validated using reference DNA samples and the B15 allele frequency in 4 distinct ethnic populations was investigated. The results show that these populations contain predominantly mutually exclusive sets of B15 alleles.