Confounding factors in HLA-DW 2 typing of human leucocytes
Källén, B.; Löw, B.; Nilsson, O.
Clinical and Experimental Immunology 27(1): 55-62
1977
ISSN/ISBN: 0009-9104 PMID: 139221 Document Number: 121666
Three healthy HL-A-B7 homozygous subjects were found with similar but not identical HL-A-D antigens; one was DW 2 homozygous according to independent typing results. This could be an expression of long and short HL-A-D antigens or be due to differences in weak antigens outside the HL-A-D region. Two further healthy HL-A-B7 homozygous subjects were studied; one was apparently heterozygous for DW 2, the other apparently carried no DW 2 antigen. Both could discriminate between different DW 2 homozygous test cells. Two such test cells, one from a patient with multiple sclerosis (MS) and the other from a man with 2 children with MS, gave variable and absurd reactions with cells from the 2 subjects in question. It is tentatively suggested that genes exist which, when present in both moieties in a mixed leukocyte reaction (MLR), can impair the MLR and give false typing reactions. This might be more common among patients with MS and perhaps also some other diseases (certain arthritides, e.g., rheumatoid arthritis) than among healthy subjects, and can complicate or make impossible the interpretation of HL-A-D typing data. It could also explain the previously-described impaired MLR between cells from patients with these diseases.