Additionally, we validated seven of eight previously reported CHB susceptibility loci (rs3130542 at HLA-C, rs1419881 at TCF19, rs652888 at EHMT2, rs2856718 at HLA-DQB1, rs7453920 at HLA-DQB2, rs3077 at HLA-DPA1, and rs9277535 at HLA-DPA2, which are all located in the HLA region, 9.84 × 10(-71) ≤ Pmeta ≤ 9.92 × 10(-7) ).
Given the previously described association between major histocompatibility complex alleles and CHB risk, we undertook the present study to test the hypothesis that a variant form of HLA-CAsn80Lys, which binds with high affinity to an inhibitory killer cell immunoglobulin-like receptor (KIR) and thus renders natural killer (NK) cells incapable of restricting inflammation, contributes to the development of CHB.
HLA-DRB1*04 and HLA-Cw*05 were identified as novel foetal HLA allele variants that confer susceptibility to CHB in response to Ro/SSA autoantibody exposure, whilst DRB1*13 and Cw*06 emerged as protective alleles.