Abstract:

Objective  To investigate the relationship between polymorphism of human leukocyte antigen (HLA) HLA-DRB1 alleles and the incidence of nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) of Han and Uygur people in Xinjiang. Methods  Polymerase chain reaction-sequence specific primers (PCR-SSP) technique was adopted to detect the allele frequencies of HLA-DRB1 for 55 Han patients with NPC, 41 Uygur patients with NPC, 62 Han healthy controls, and 35 Uygur healthy controls. The difference of distribution of allele frequencies between patients and controls were compared. Results  ①The allele frequency of HLA-DRB1*08 of Han patients with NPC was higher than that of controls (P<0.05) and the allele frequencies of DRB1*11 and DRB1*15 were lower than those of controls (P<0.05). After P was corrected by Bonferroni correction, the difference of allele frequencies of HLA-DRB1 were not statistically significant (Pc>0.05). ②The difference of allele frequencies of HLA-DRB1 between Uygur patients with NPC and controls were not statistically significant (Pc>0.05). ③The allele frequencies of HLA-DRB1*08, DRB1*09, and DRB1*12 of Han patients with NPC were higher than those of Uygur patients with NPC (P<0.05) and the allele frequencies of DRB1*07 and DRB1*13 were lower than those of Uygur patients with NPC (P<0.05). After Bonferroni correction, the differences of allele frequencies of DRB1*07 (Pc=0.002), DRB1*08 (Pc=0.009), and DRB1*09 (Pc=0.039) were statistically significant. Conclusion  The allele frequencies of HLA-DRB1 of Han patients with NPC are different from those of Uygur patients with NPC in Xinjiang. Polymorphism of HLA-DRB1 alleles may not correlate with the incidence of NPC of Han and Uygur people.

Key words: nasopharyngeal carcinoma, HLA-DRB1, allele, polymorphism