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Background: Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is an autoimmune, inflammatory disease, caused by environmental and genetic factors., Aim: To elucidate the association of human leukocyte antigen (HLA)-DRB1*/DQB1* alleles/haplotypes and the variations of polymorphic amino acid changes in peptide binding pockets in RA patients from south India., Methods: HLA typing was performed in 176 RA patients and 176 healthy controls by polymerase chain reaction-sequence-specific primers method., Results: Strong susceptible association for alleles such as DRB1*04:01(odds ratio [OR] = 3.66), 04:06 (OR = 3.81), 03:01 (OR = 2.93), 06:01 (OR = 2.53) and protective association for alleles such as DRB1*13:01 (OR = 0.17), 14:01 (OR = 0.15), 05:02 (OR = 0.17), and 05:03 (OR = 0.338) were observed in RA patients. The 2-locus haplotypes such as 04-02:01 (OR = 3.844), 04-06:01 (OR = 6.57), 07-03:01 (OR = 6.16), 07-06:01 (OR = 3.42), 12-06:01 (OR = 5.24), 15-03:01 (OR = 4.69) with susceptible and DRB1*14-DQB1*05:03 (OR = 0.078) with protective associations were observed in RA patients. The acid-base analysis revealed that the basic group BB allele was positively associated (OR = 2.372) and the acidic group AA allele was negatively associated (OR = 0.086). The analysis on shared epitopes has revealed that the combination QKRAA+, (Q)RRAA+ or (Q)RRAA- was positively associated with RA (OR = 2.78). The amino acid variation at HLA-DQβ molecule revealed susceptible associations for residues E 86 and L 87 (P1); E 74 (P3); A 13 , Y 26 , I/S 28 , T 28 , I 71 and E 74 (P4); L 9 , T 30 , D 37 and D 57 (P9), whereas, the amino acids A 86 and T 87 (P1); S 74 (P3); G 13/26 , A 71 and S 74 (P4); H 30 and T 37 , S 57 (P9), showed protective associations., Conclusions: Alleles DRB1*04:06 and*04:01 showed strong susceptible and DRB1*13:01 and *14:01 showed protective associations in RA patients. The amino acid variations in DQβ molecules revealed significant molecular markers for susceptibility to and protection from RA in south India., (© 2019 Asia Pacific League of Associations for Rheumatology and John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd.)

We studied the relationship between human leukocyte antigen (HLA) class I alleles and cervical cancer among Indian women. Seventy-five cervical cancer cases were compared with 175 noncancer controls. Cervical biopsy tissue specimen from cancer cases and cervical swab specimen from controls were collected for HPV detection and typing. Blood was taken for HLA typing by PCR-SSOP method. The impact of HLA class I alleles on cervical cancer risk was evaluated using StatCalc program (Epi Info version 6.0.4. CDC Atlanta, GA, USA), and confirmed with Bonferroni correction. Results revealed HLA-B*37, HLA-B*58 were associated significantly with increased risk while HLA-B*40 with decreased risk for cervical cancer. At high-resolution analysis after Bonferroni correction, HLA-B*37:01 allele was associated with increased risk, whereas HLA-B*40:06 was with decreased risk for cervical cancer. HLA-B*37:01 and HLA-B*40:06 belong to the same superfamily of HLA-B44. In silico analysis revealed different binding affinities of HLA-B*37:01 and HLA-B*40:06 for the epitopes predicted for E6 and L1 proteins of HPV16. The higher binding affinity of epitopes to B*40:06, as revealed by docking studies, supports the hypothesis that this allele is able to present the antigenic peptides more efficiently than B*37:01 and thereby can protect the carriers from the risk of cervical cancer. Thus, there is a clear indication that HLA plays an important role in the development of cervical cancer in HPV-infected women. Identification of these factors in high-risk HPV-infected women may help in reducing the cervical cancer burden in India.