Association of HLA class II DR/DQ alleles in children and adolescents with rheumatic heart disease from a tertiary care centre in North India.

Introduction: Rheumatic fever and RHD constitutes an important public health problem in India. The relatively low attack rate of RF, the high concordance rate for RF in monozygotic twins (19%) compared to dizygotic twins (2.5%), and the high familial incidence of RF suggest the involvement of host genetic factors in susceptibility to RF with consequential progression to RHD.
Objective: To study the association of HLA CLASS II DR/DQ alleles in children and adolescents with RHD from a tertiary care center in North India.
Methods: 30 RHD patients and 30 age and sex-matched controls were included in our study and blood samples for HLA typing were processed through LAB Type™ reverse SSO DNA typing method. The assignment of the HLA typing was based on a comparison with already published HLA gene sequences.
Results: The mean age of RHD patients and matched control groups were 12.97 ± 2.95 and 11.93 ± 3.23, respectively. In the cases and control group, males accounted for 63.3% and 50% of the patients respectively. A significant difference was found between the cases and controls for HLA DR∗ 15 (p-value 0.002), HLA DR∗ B4 (p-value 0.045), HLA DR∗ B5 (p-value 0.017), and HLA DQB1∗ 02 (p-value 0.005).
Conclusion: Our study suggests that HLA class II haplotypes may provide insight into the molecular mechanism of RHD and be a useful tool in predicting the clinical outcome in RF patients, thereby affording new means of intervention or vaccine design. Larger studies are needed to address this in our population.
Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests:DR. ANBARASAN A reports administrative support was provided by Atal Bihari Vajpayee Institute of Medical Sciences & Dr Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital. DR ANBARASAN A reports a relationship with Atal Bihari Vajpayee Institute of Medical Sciences & Dr Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital that includes: employment.
(Copyright © 2023. Published by Elsevier, a division of RELX India, Pvt. Ltd.)