To verify the role of DPB1*0501 and DPB1*0301 in Japanese MS patients we determined the frequencies of these alleles in 26 patients with OSMS, 167 with non-OSMS and 156 normal subjects, who were all residents of Hokkaido, the northernmost island of Japan.
To study further the association between HLA and rheumatic valvular disease, DNA typing HLA class II genes (DRB1, DQA1, DQB1 and DPB1) was performed in 72 unrelated Japanese patients with predominant mitral stenosis and 525 unrelated Japanese healthy controls, based on the polymerase chain reaction in combination of dot-blot hybridization with sequence-specific oligonucleotide probes.As compared with controls.